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NEBRASKA AND KANSAS."*^ 



SPEECH 



MR. CASS, OF MICHIGAN, 



ON 



THE POWERS OF THE GOVERNMENT OVER SLAVERY IN THE 

TERRITORIES; 



DELITERED IN THE 



SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEB. 20, 1854. 



SSISE--' 









WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 

1854. 



) -r.*^*\\ 






n 



THE NEBRASKA AND KANSAS BILL. 



The Senate resumed the consideration of the 
bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska. 

Mr. CASS said: Mr. President, but four brief 
years are passing away, brief in the life of a nation, 
since this Hall resounded with angry and agita- 
ting discussions upon the very topics that now dis- 
turb and divide us, and since every breeze that 
spread out to the heavens the flag that waves over 
us — our father's flag, and blessed be God, yet our 
own — brought us from crowded city and from lone- 
ly cabin, from hill, valley, and prairie, from ocean 
and lake, the echoes of anxiety and alarm, pass- 
ing over the country, and which announced that 
a great people had reached a crisis in their destiny, 
which, for weal or for woe, might mark their his- 
tory during long ages to come. Well, all this 
passed away by the mercy of Providence rather 
than by the wisdom of man, and a beautiful trib- 
ute was furnished to the inestimable value of free 
institutions; for there is not another Government 
under heaven which could have entered into such 
a trial, and come out of it unscathed. Peace and 
prosperity and good feeling were restored, and 
we looked forward to long years of tranquillity. 
The events now upon us are another illustration 
of the vanity of human expectations. But yes- 
terday the whole hemisphere was without a cloud, 
even in the distant horizon. To-day the signs of 
an approaching tempest are audible and visible, 
and the only question which can ever put to haz- 
ard our union and safety, presents itself for solu- 
tion. With the honorable Senator from Massa- 
chusetts [Mr. Everett] 1 frankly avow that I 
was filled with doubt and alarm during the trou- 
bles and contests, which were terminated by the 
compromise measures of 1850, and he who was 
unmoved, had more apathy or less apprehension 
than I had. J But though the ominous cry of Woe, 
woe to Jerusalem U is once more heard , I do not be- 
lieve that thecountry is in any danger, not the least; 
but still I do not deny that these frequent, almost 
periodical renewals, and revivals of this threaten- 
ing subject, must necessarily produce irritation and 
excitement, tending to array one section of the 
country against another, and thus to weaken those 



ties of confidence and affection so essential to the 
permanence and tranquillity of this mighty Con- 
federacy. Events, connected with our territorial 
aggrandizement, seemed as their necessary conse- 
quence, to lead to the former agitation; but the 
present one has burst upon us without warning, 
and, as I think, from causes which might have 
been avoided. 

Mr. President, I have not withheld the expres- 
sion of my regret elsewhere, nor shall I withhold 
it here, that this question of the repeal of the 
Missouri compromise, which opens all the dis- 
puted points connected with the subject of con- 
gressional action upon slavery in the territory of 
the United States, ha.s been brought before us. 
I do not think the practical advantages to result 
from the measure will outweigh the injury which 
the ill-feeling, fated to accompany the discussion 
of this subject through the country, is sure to pro- 
duce. And I was confirmed in this impression by 
what was said by the Senator from Tennessee, 
[Mr. Jones,] by the Senator from Kentucky, [Mr 
Dixon,] and by the Senator from North Carolina, 
[Mr. Badger,] and also by the remarks which 
fell from the Senator from Virginia, [Mr. Hun- 
ter,] and in which I fully concur, that the South 
will never derive any benefit from this measure, 
so far as respects the extension of slavery; for 
legislate as we may, no human power can ever es- 
tablish it in the regions defined by these bills. 

And such were the sentiments of two eminent 
patriots, to v/hose exertions we are greatly in- 
debted for the satisfactory termination of the difii- 
culties of 1850, end who have since passed from 
their labors — we may humbly hope, to their re- 
wards. It is excluded by a law, to borrov/ tbi 
words of one of them, in which the other fully 
acquiesced, superior to that which admits it elsewhere. 
The law of nature, of physical geography, the law of 
the formation of the earth. That laxo settles forever, 
tvith a strength beyond all terms of human enactment, 
that slavery cannot exist there. 

Thus beheving, 1 should have been better con- 
tent had the whole subject been left as it was in 
the bills when first introduced by the Senator from 



Illinois, without any provision regarding the Mis- 
souri compromise. I am aware it was reported 
that I intended to propose the repeal of that meas- 
ure; but it was an error. My intentions were 
•wholly misunderstood. I had no design whatever 
to take such a step, and thus resuscitate from 
its quietude a deed of conciliation which had done 
its work, and had done it well, and which was 
hallowed by patriotism, by success, and by its 
association with great names now transferred to 
history. It belonged to a past generation; and in 
the midst of a political tempest, which appalled the 
wisest and the firmest in the land, it had said to 
the waves of agitation. Peace, be slill, and they be- 
came still. It would have been better, in my 
opinion, not to disturb its slumber, as all useful 
and practical objects could have been attained 
without it. But the question is here v/ithout my 
agency, and I am called upon to take my part in 
its adjustment. I shall do so frankly and fear- 
lessly. 

Mr. President, in the report made by the Com- 
mittee on Territories on the introduction of these 
bills, it is said that there is an important question 
connected with the subject, about which opinions 
have been much divided, and which the commit- 
tee did not think it expedient to investigate: That 
is, whether the citizens of the several States had 
a right, under the Constitution, to introduce into 
any Territory, and thereto hold, any kind of prop- 
erty belonging to them, whether persons or things, 
though prohibited by the local law. It is an im- 
portant question, and I do not see how its consid- 
eration is to be avoided, connecting itself as it 
does with one of the gravest provisif)ns to be 
found in these bills. When they were first intro- 
duced, they contained merel)' a general grant, as 
it is called — recognition , I call it — of a power in the 
Territorial Legislatures over all rightful subjects of 
legislation compatible with the Constitution. I 
believe this provision would have secured to these 
local assemblies jurisdiction over this subject; but 
as that w^as denied, I desired a more specific dec- 
laration, and it is now introduced in the amend- 
ment proposed by the Senator from Illinois, [Mr. 
Douglas.] 

That amendment declares that the people, 
whether in the Territories, or in the States to be 
formed from them, are free to regulate their do- 
mestic institutions in their own way, subject only 
to the Constitution of the United States. I am 
content with this arrangement, though if any 
amendment is introduced to make the provision 
Btill clearer, I shall cheerfully vote for it. But 
what is to be its effect upon these new communi- 
ties, is alegitimate subject of inquiry. If the con- 
stitutional claim to which 1 have ah-eady referred 
is well founded, then neither congressional nor 
territorial action can interfere with it; and what- 
ever power this clause may give to the local Legis- 
latures to abolish or establish slavery for their own 
'citizens, it gives ihem none to prevent the slave- 
holder from one of the States from introducing his 
slaves into these regions, an<i there holding them. 
The general duly of suljmission to the municipal 
laws of a country no one denies. He, therefore, 
who claims any exemption from their obligations, 
must establish it, or he becomes exposed to their 
penalties. Under these circum.'^tances, I think the 
course of the Senator from Virginia, [Mr. Hun- 
ter,] and of the Senator from Mississippi, [Mr. 



Brown,] was entirely correct, in introducing and 
discussing this topic, involving the great question 
of the right of self-government; and I shall follow 
their example. I consider it due to my constitu- 
ents and to myself, that no doubts should rest 
upon my sentiments, and that 1 should state clearly 
the construction I put upon the effect of my own 
vote. And I do so with the less hesitation, as this 
is the first opportunity I have had to redeem my- 
self from the obloquy and reproach which not 
long ago were heaped upon me in the South, v/ith 
as little moderation as though I had betrayed my 
coumry to a foreign enemy. 

' A short time since this claim to introduce slaves 
into the Territories, though prohibited by the 
local laws, was authoritatively advanced, and 
became the suiiject of public discussion here and 
elsewhere. With a view to establish its nature 
and extent, I shall refer to declarations then made 
by public bodies and by prominent public men 

i enjoying the confidence of their fellow-citizens. 

And first, I will introduce the authority of the 
General Assembly of Virginia, in 1847, which 
unanimously declared by resolution that all terri- 
tory that may be acquired by the arms of the 
United States, or yielded by treaty with any for- 
eign Power, belongs to the several States of this 
Union as their joint and common property, in 
which each and all have equal rights; and they 
further declared that the citizens of every State 
have a constitutional right to emigrate to such ter- 
ritory with their property of whatever descrip- 
tion. Resolutions of similar import were passed 
by the Legislatures of Georgia and Alabama, and 
I believe of other southern States. 

' Mr. Calhoun said in the Senate: 

" We of the South have contributed our full share of 
funds, and shed our full share of blood lor the acquisition 
of our Territories. Can you, on any principle of equality 
and justice, deprive us of our full share in their 'benefits 

, rind advantages?" 

" Now, I put the question to the Senators of the North, 
what are you prepared to do.' Are you prepared to pros- 
trate the ijarriers of the Constitution, and, in open defiance 
of the principles of equality and justice, to exclude the 
South from Uie Territories, and monopolize them lor the 
North.'" 

" Would it deserve the name of free soil if one half of 

the Union should be excluded, and the other half should 

inonopoli/.e it, when it was won by the joint efforts of all ."' 

' " All we demand is to stand on the same level, and to 

participate equally in what belongs to all." 

Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, said: 
" We maintain that it is the right of the South to carry 
Ihia species of property (slaves) to any portion of the Ter- 
ritories of the United States ; that it rests, under the Con- 
stitution, on the same basis as other properly." 

And I have seen in the public journals a letter 
[ recently published from this distinguished citieen, 
now high in the councils of his country, but no 
I higher than in the confidence and esteem of his 
. countrymen, in which bespeaks in rather reproach- 
ful terms, contemptuous, I might say, of those who 
j doubt the proposition that there is a certain cons'i- 
i tutional motive power in slavery by which it im- 
mediately spreads over any country, at least for a 
i certain class of persons, as soon as it is acquired 
by the United States, whatever may be the local 
law previously existing there upon the subject, 
by which, if Canada or Nova Scotia were annexed 
to the United States to-morrow, slaves mig'ht 
be introduced and held there till prohibited by an 
article in their constitution, to be formed prepara- 
tory to their admission into the Union. 



5 



He calls them a '♦ sect," and seems to make it 
a reproach to stand on the same platform with 
them. I think, sir, he will find the believers in 
this doctrine the trueand orthodox church, whether 
judged by the purity of their constitutional creed, 
or by the numbers of the faithful; and such are 
the manifest signs of the times. 

Among these believers to my knowledge, were 
the two distinguished men to whom I have already 
alluded, whose services in life, and memory and 
death, will always be dear to their countrymen, 
and whose sentiments will go far to redeem from 
the charge of heterodoxy those who participated 
in the belief they professed. And among them 
are also equally to my knowledge, living states- 
men, honorable and intelligent men, who have oc- 
cupied important stations and enjoy the confi- 
dence of their fellow-citizens, and whose residence 
in slave States is at any rate a proof of their disin- 
terestedness. 

The writer considers this "sect" as having 
" arrayed the sovereignty of the territorial in 
habitants as a barrier to Federal legislaiion, for 
the protection of a slaveholder's property who 
should migrate from a southern State, one of the 



Governor Means, in a message to the Legisla- 
ture of South Carolina, said: 

" You know we have been deprived of every acre of that 
territory which was won by our blond and treasure, robbed, 
&.C., of the very graves of our gallant countrymen." 

Mr. Venable said: 

" It would be equally repugnant to the principles of right 
and justice that a large portion of the citizens of the United 
States, even the very men whose lives were periled in the 
war, should be excluded from occupying the land that they 
had won with their swords." 

And again, Mr. Venable gave as a reason for 
the right to take slaves to the " Territories," that 
these are the — 

" Public domain, acquired by the expenditure of the 
common purse, or purchased by the valor of our people, 
without reference to geographical distinctions or domestic 
I regulations." 

i Mr. Woodward said : 

I " Arc slaveholders, under the common Constitution of 
I the Union, entitled, with their slaves, to enter upon, pur- 
I chase, and occupy, peaceably, the public lands, which are 
the property of the people of the United States .' " 

He contended they were. 

And [ understood the Senator from Virginia, 
[Mr. Hunter,] and the Senator from Mississippi, 
joint owners of that Territory, to become an in-il [Mr. Brown,] to express their full concurrence in 
habitant of it." | these views. 

For myself, I do not know of any one who,i in reviewing the opinions to which I have re- 
claimed sovereignty for the Territories, though I j ferred, it will be seen that the general proposition 
know of one, at least, who claimed for them the j | niay be thus stated : That the territory of the United 
right of internal legislation, because no }urlsdic-\ States, being acquired by the treasure and exertions of 
tion over them, to that effect, is given to Congress ' j the ickole country, every citizen has a constitutional 
by the Constitution, and because they have an in- ,i right to go there ad libitum, and to take with him and 
alienable right to enjoy that privilege; and the < to hold every kind of property recognized as such by 
monnent a Government is ori^anized by Federal the laics of the Slate he leaves, and there to hold it. 



power, that moment commences their right to ex- ; 
ercise their own legislation. I do not understand ■ 
what is meant in the above paragraph by the sov- 1 
ercigniy of the territorial inhabitants as a barrier to 
Federal legislation. 



whatever may be the local law, until prevented by a 
constitutional provision of the new State embracing 
such district of country. 

lit is not pretended that a clause to this effect 
exists in the Constitution, but that the right and 



I do not believe in crushing human liberty to , the principle are the necessary results of the 
the earth by a kind of abstract mystical attribute, j equality of the fundamental compact, 
even if you call it SOVEREIGNTY, which, underour |{ Let us first see what are the words of that in- 
Government is a mere assumption, the word itself strument on this general subject of the public 
not being in the Constitution, nor can any power property. Here they are: 



be exercised by virtue of it. 

I never heard of such a barrier, but I have heard 
of one, and a much more legitimate and effectual 
one, and that is the want of constitutional power 
in Congress to legislate upon the subject of slavery 
at all. We, who deny the existence of any such 



" The Congress shall have powerto dispose of and make 
all needful rules and roaulations respecting the territory or 
other property of the United States." 

The postulate may be well granted , that the prop- 
erty of the United States belongs ultimately to the 
people, without, however, the slightest approach 



authority, deny it because the General Government .towards the right of any individual to take pos- 
is aGovernment of limited powers, with a right to : session of any part of it, and to appropriate it to 
exercise none which are not expressly granted, or j; his own use. It belongs to the people, in their 
not necessary to the execution of th'os'e that are. ' political organization, as the final depositaries of 
And we have, in vain, for years, called upon those the power and property of the Goverimient. But 
who maintain the contrary position to point to the i i its administration is vested exclusively in the Le- 
section, or paragraph, or clause, or word, or let- i gislatnre of the United States, that name which 
ter of the Constitution, which gives any such , designates our political Confederation among the 
power to Congress, either expressly, or by any i Powers of the earth; not the States, tinited agree- 
reasonable implication. It is a discovery yet to ably to the pregnant reading lately adopted; nor 
be made. I will quote the opinions of one or two : ', can the States separately, nor corporations, nor 
other gentlemen, and then quit this branch of the j individuals, take possession of the public prop- 
subject. Mr. Berrien said: ! erty, unless such right is given by law, any more 
. ^ .. ^ . „ I than they can take possession of the property of 

"You cannot say that the inhabitants of those States' „„„ „..;„;,♦„ .;.;.^=« i. io liol.t f^,. iU^\^t,rir^]a ar,4 
(the non-slaveholding States) shall have any exclusive any pi'ivate citizen. It is held foi the people, and 
privilege in the entry and occupation of the public land is administered for their beneht; hut this is to be 
there." done in the mode pointed out by the Constitution. 

"Th« South asserts then her right to participate in any : : jvf g Sf^te can claim, as a right, its distributive 

and all of the territories which may be acquired bv the , r ., _ , ,• , „j „„„ „.,,. :.,,i:.,;,i,,„i 

United States. She asserts her right to migrate to them ! share of the public land, nor can any individual 
with her property of every description." i I appropriate to himself a portion of it under the 



6 



pretext that he is entitled to the quantity he chooses 
to seize. The ships-of-war of the United States, 1 
and tlieir forts, and arsenals, and custom-houses, 
tiie Capitol, the public offices, the Executive man- 
sion, were all acquired or erected by the means of 
tlie whole people of the Union, and the whole 
people have an equal interest in their use and ad- { 
ministration; but no sane man would contend that 
he has a rio^ht to enter those works at pleasure, 
and there to remain, because they belong to the 
Confederation, and because every citizen having a 
share in the property may take it and hold it in 
severance when he will and as he will. 

That all the citizens of the United States have 
an equal right, under the laiv, to remove to and 
purchase any part of the public domain, open 
for sale, is a political truism, which no man ac- 
quainted with the principles of our Government 
will deny. But if he go there contrary to the law, 
he is a trespasser, unless, indeed, the law, whicVi 
prohibits him, is in violation of the Constitution. 
We have already seen, that to Congress has been 
committed the power to " dispose of and regu- 
late" the public domain or territory; a power 
bounded only by a sound legislative discretion, if 
rot restrained by other provisions of the Consti- j 
tution. No other is alleged to exist, except this [ 
new general deduction from the nature of the I 
Government. Congress may •" regulate and dis- 
pose of" this property at its pleasure. It may' 
withlioid from sale any or all of it, and it has at 
all times so withheld much of it. Every man \ 
who enters upon the public land without legal per- 1 
mission i.s a trespasser, liable to be punished; 
and innumerable are the punishments which have 
been inflicted for that offense. Practice has, indeed, 
'relaxed the rigor of the law, and settlements are 
often formed without calling forth its penalties. 
But the principle remains the same, and no man 
can claim a right in opposition to it. 

Then no citizen can take possession of any por- 
tion of the public territory or other property 
without legal permission so to do. Congress must 
first regulate the mode and the terms. Can that 
body make no discrimination in the administration 
of this trust, founded on any circumstances of 
public interest, or of private condition; or is there 
an inexorable constitutional equality, which opens 
the public domain to all, and at all times .' No 
man has ever contended for such a principle or 
such a practice. From the very commencement 
of the land system, down to the present session of 
Congress, partial grants have been made, showing 
the uncontrolled power of the Legislature, and the 
non-existence of any such universal right as is 
claimed. Tracts have been granted to individuals; 
almost every page of your statute-book bears evi- 
dence of it; they have been granted to persons liv- 
ing within particular districts, to others of acertain 
age, and yet to others, in quantities greater or 
less, depending on the number in their families, 
and under many other circumstances, which it 
would be tedious to enumerate. All litis has been 
done, not for nor against jiarticular sections of the 
country, nor in violation of a just equality, but 
because called for by peculiar circumstances, ap- 
plicable either 'to the cases of individuals, or to 
certain districts making part of the public lands, 
and ref|uiring a peculiar policy. 

What is the proper limit of Congressional dis- 
cretion in this exceptional legislation, by which 



provision may be made for particular exigencies, 
it is not necessary to inquire for any purpose I 
have in view. Nor shall I stop to examine what 
conditions might be annexed to the sale of the 
public lands: whether Congress might require that 
the purchasers should be slaveholders, or that only 
free labor should be employed in cultivation, or 
encumber the grants with other restrictions; for no 
such power has ever been assumed, or is likely 
to be. My own convictions are utterly opposed 
to it. The authority to exclude slavery from the 
Territories, however, by the measure known as 
the Wilmot proviso, is claimed as an attribute of 
sovereign legislation, as it is called, and has no 
relation to the sale of land resulting from the rights 
of a^land owner. My object is attained when I 
show that there is no practical principle of univer- 
sal equality which enables every man to claim, as a 
right, precisely what any other man has received. 
Such a principle would render our land system 
as fixed and immutable as the laws of the Medes 
and Persians; at least, so far as respects any 
checks or securities that experience might require, 
or any increase of the price under any circum- 
stances. 

The proposition that the " territory and other 
property " of the United States have been acquired 
by the common blood or treasure of the Union, 
or by both, and tliat the whole Union has an equal 
right to them, contains the enunciation of a prin- 
ciple, and the assertion of a fact, which cnmmend 
themselves to universal assent. But it is a rela- 
tive, not an absolute right; a right of equality under 
the same circumstances, not under all circumstan- 
1 ces. A citizen of South Carolina, and a citizen 
of Massachusetts, have equal claims to migrate to 
any portion of the public " territory " upon equal 
conditions. One cannot be excluded because he 
belongs to one State, nor the other admitted be- 
I cause he belongs to another. The true principle 
' is the very one, not indeed applicable in its terms, 
'■ though in its spirit, which regulates the intercourse 
i between the different States, that "the citizens of 
each State shall be entitled to all the privileges 
I and immunities of citizens in the several States." 
I Apply this principle to the Territories, and we 
have a just rule of action. For it must be recol- 
lected, that a good deal of the difficulty involved 
in this question arises from the confusion insepa- 
rable from the application of the sfeme word to very 
' different purposes. 

The word "territory" is only used in the 
Constitution as applicable to the " property" of 
the United States, and obviously to their landed 
property. " The territory and other property of 
the United States," are committed to the regufa- 
tion and diaposition of Congress, and the Supreme 
[I Court has said that " the term ' territory,' as 
' here used, is merely descriptive of one kind of 
\ property, and is equivalent to the word i.an'Ps," 
&'C.; and this, in my view, without any crant what- 
ever of political jurisdiction. The power confer- 
red is that of a land-owner, for the purpose of the 
management and disposition of a vast real estate. 
But beside this primary, and only constitutional 
use of the term, it has acquired another in our pe- 
' culiar vocalnilary, and has come by practice to 
: indicate a political community with a temporarily 
ii organized government estal)liahed by Congress, 
li extending over a given district not included in 
, any of the States, and with an eventual right of 



admission into the'Union. Tiie questions touching , 
the former kind of " territory" relate to its reg- 
ulation and disposition as property, and are con- 
^ded to the discretion of Congress. Those, touch- 
ing the latter, embrace all the concerns of civil 
government and of human liberty, and are confided 
tp the people themselves for their solution, subject 
only to thecontrol of the Constitution, and to such 
supervisory authority of the general legislature 
ss arises out of the necessity of the circumstances, 
and to no more. 

When, therefore, there is a claim of right to enter , 
the " territory" of the United States, before such 
claim can be adjusted, it must be ascertained 
whether it is the public domain which is sought 
to be taken possession of and enjoyed, by a pur- 
chaser or settler, or whether it is a political com- 
munity, of which a citizen of the United States 
desires to become a member, with all the " privi- 
leges and immunities," which constitutionally be- 
long to that Qondition. For the principles that 
regulate the decision, are widely different. The 
public domain, or the land territory, exists as well 
in the States as in the political Territories, and the 
power of Congress to regulate and dispose of it 
ia not at all affected by the admission of a State into 
the Union. It is now the same, to the last letter, in 
Ohio that it is in Oregon. It does not touch in 
:either case any question of political jurisdiction, 
but is simply an authority to protect and hold and 
dispose of the property of the United States, at 
the discretion of Congress. Nor is there a single 
provision of a statute upon this subject which is 
not every day applied , when the case arises, where- 
ever there is an acre of the public domain remaining, 
whetiier in a State or Territory. On tiie other hand , 
if the claimant seeks to become a citizen of one of 
those political territorial communities — and many 
of them before their admission into the Union, as 
Louisiana, Florida, Missouri , Tennessee, Ohio and 
others contained extensive districts never owned 
by the United States, and which. Of course, were 
not their land "territory^' — we have then presented 
the previous question. Whether any man, citizen 
or alien, has a right to migrate to them, and there 
•reside, without being subject to all the local laws 
which govern the other inhabitants ? 

It is obvious, upon an examination of the pre- 
ceding opinions, that the constitutional claim is 
to occupy the " territory," or land, or public do- 
main, as it is equally called, of the United States, 
and the injury they denounce is exclusion from 
this common property. I 

The Nashville convention, for example, says j 
that the Territories are the " common property" 
of the United States. Now, sir, I suppose no 
man in this broad Republic will maintain that the 
people living in a Territory, or the lands belong- \ 
ing to them, are the property of the General Gov- 
ernment, or of any other Government under 
heaven. The citizens are their own masters, 
under the Constitution, as much as the people of 
a State, 'and are the property of no man; and the 
only common property which the United States 
possess is their public domain; or, in other words, 
the land which belongs to them. And this was 
precisely the view taken by Mr. Calhoun, when 
he said: 

'•'To tliem, in their tinited character, the territories be- 
long, as is expressly declared by the Constitution. They 
are their joint common owners, regarded as laud, " 



And this indiscriminate use of the words " ter- 
ritory," and " territories," when speaking of the 
public,domain, is a very common practice. Mr. 
Venable said: 

" Sir, the Constitution provides for territories as property, 
and authorizes Congress to dispose of and make all need-' 
ful rules for their regulation." 

The foundation, indeed, of the whole claim is, 
that whatever public domain is acquired by the 
common Government belongs equally to all the 
citizens of the States, and all of them have an 
I equal right, with all their property, to its enjoy- 
ment. 

I Such is the general statement of the principles 
j involved in this controversy, and it is evident, in 
the presentation of this claim, they have not un- 
1 dergone the analysis which is necessary to a satis- 
factory decision. " You have excluded us," say 
many of the southern statesmen, " from territory 
acquired by the common blood and treasure of the 
Union;" " you have robbed us of it," say others, 
less discreet, or less forbearing; "and we cannot 
go there," say a considerable portion of them, so 
far as I am aware of the opinions of the South. 
I But no citizen, northern or southern, is prevented 
I from purchasing any part of the public domain, 
open for sale, wherever it be situated. All are free 
alike to select, as they please, whether in States or 
I " Territories." Neither the register nor receiver 
\ of a land office ever asks the applicant whence he 
[ came, nor how he intends to enjoy the property. 
.They receive the purchase money, and give the 
evidence of title, upon which the patent issues, 
and there ends the arrangement with the United 
States. But then commences the political part, 
regulated by the local laws, which prescribe the 
[conditions, to which every citizen must submit in 
I the community where he has made his purchase. 
The taxes he shall pay, sometimes the laborers he 
, shall employ, so far as to exclude colored persons, 
perhaps the number of hours they shall work, 
I the age when his apprentices shall finish their 
[ terms of service, and whether slavery shall be 
allowed there; and many other matters of internal 
! regulation are prescribed by the Legislature, and 
j demand the obedience of the people. 
I Now, if a right to settle upon the "territory," or 
public land, oftheUnited States, and to carry there 
any species of property, recognized as such by 
' the laws of the States, is deducible from the princi- 
I pies of the Constitution, and because the southern 
States would be excluded from " a commori and 
; equal enjoyment of the 'territory' of the Union," 
\ as declared in the protest presented by many of 
I the southern Senators against the admission of 
j California, why is it that this right is limited to 
the political " territories," and is not coexten- 
: sive with the public property or domain? Why 
does it cease on the establishment of a Stategovern- 
j ment; and how can the latter control or restrain a 
I privilege held under the general Constitution : For 
; it must be recollected that this claim is advanced 
I as one secured .jby that instrument upon the prin- 
I ciples of a just equality, and we all know that in 
I it is the express declaration that it is " the supreme 
law of the land," and that the laws and conslitu- 
i tions of the several States are void when repug- 
nant to it. How happensit, then, that if the right 
I to take slaves from a southern Slate to the public 
domain is essential to that free and equal enjoy- 
i ment of it which the Constitution secures to the 



8 



whole Union; how happens it, I repeat, that !| 
this right does not preserve its integrity wherever |l 
such domain exists, and remain guarded by the I 
" supreme law" of the land till it is all "disposed \\ 
of?" . ij 

The fact is, the general position is involved in |! 
inextricable difficulties. Before the settler has | 
made a purchase, and while he is an intruder, he ji 
is living upon the public domain, and is protected i! 
in the constitutional rights which belong to that ;i 
condition, whatever these may be, equally in a ji 
State and Territory. But as soon as he acquires j| 
a legal title to occupy his tract, by purchasing it, ii 
then such tract ceases to make part of the public ij 
domain, and passes into the category of private 
property, with all the incidents belonging to it, |i 
agreeably to the law of the place — unless, indeed, 
it is saved from such a fate by some peculiar priv- 
ilege. That privilege cannot be founded upon the 
assumption that a just equality secures the enjoy- 
ment of the public domain to all. It can only se- 
cure equality of purchase; for, as we have seen, 
that very act takes from the tract, which is the 
object of it, its character as a part of such domain , 
and the laws of the United States respecting the 
public land, wherever it may be, instantly cease 
to operate upon it. It is not, therefore, the right 
to enjoy the public domain, but the right to enjoy 
property severed therefrom, which is the claim 
advanced, and to hold thereon any species of prop- 
erty, as a constitutional incident to the right of 
purchase, which, it is alleged, would be unequal 
without it. The proposition is, that the public do- 
main belongs equally to all, because acquired by 
all, and that therefore all have equal constitutional 
rights to settle upon it with all their property. 
California and New Mexico come alike within 
the terms of this postulate, both with respect to 
acquisition and to use. Both were acquired by 
the common blood and treasure of the whole 
Union, and the " territory " of the United States 
in both equally belongs to the whole Union. If, 
on the principle, therefore, of a just constitutional 
equality, a citizen of any of the States has a right 
to carry his property to the common " territory" 
in the latter, why not in the former, unless you 
assume that the constitution of California over- 
rides and supersedes the Constitution of the United 
States? If that fundamental compact guards the 
right to go to one of those regions to the extent 
claimed, it becomes those who acknowledge a 
difference in the existence of this right, between a 
State and a Territory, to show it by the terms, ex- 
pressed or implied, of that great instrument. If it 
IS not there, no such difference exists, and both of 
these political communities stand in the same rela- 
tion to this claim of equality. Where the tenure 
of certain property, slaves for example, is consid- 
ered essential to the enjoyment of a constitutional 
right, an equal right to purchase and hold the pub- 
lic lands, then such tenure is either indefinite in its 
duration, or those who maintain its temi)')rary ex- 
istence are bound to point out by what principle 
of the Constitution it ceases on the esttiMishment 
of a State government any more than that on the 
estalilishment of such government the domain 
passes from the Union to a State. For it would 
be a great error to suppose that the tenure of the 
" territory or other [irnperiy " of tlie United States 
in any State depends upon the action of the State 
government. Such property is secured, wherever 



it lies, by the Constitution, as well in the old 
States as m the new. In the former there is much 
property of the General Government, consisting 
of forts, arsenals, &c., which it has purchased, 
and holds as a land-owner, without any cession 
of State jurisdiction. In such cases that is re- 
tained by the State, but the properly itself can no 
more be seized than can the property of an indi- 
vidual. The compacts with the new States gen- 
erally contain several provisions, and among them 
the cessionof the right of taxation, for which they 
receive a valuable consideration. Whether these 
compacts provide for a recognition of the title of 
the United States or not, that title is wholly inde- 
pendent of any such arrangement, and depends for 
its security upon the Constitution. 

Any proposition must be logically false which 
necessarily leads to a false conclusion. This claim 
of a constitutional right to hold slaves upon land 
purchased from the United States, as an incident 
to its " equal enjoyment," if it exist at all, must 
exist till terminated by the operation of the general 
Constitution , as that instrument is supreme within 
the sphere of its jurisdiction, and as no other au- 
thority can control its action. It is universally 
conceded that this right ceases when prohibited 
by the constitution of a State; and as the assump- 
tion upon which the demand rests, if well founded, 
would render it independent of State action, and 
continue itsexistenceindependent of Stateinterdic- 
tion, it follows that it cannot be maintained consist- 
ently with the principles of our political institu- 
tions. 

1 do not know who claims the paternity of this 
pretension — when or where it originated. It is cer- 
tainly of very recent birth, unknown heretofore 
in our political discussions of this general subject. 
The surprise I felt on its first appearance has not 
at all diminished by time or examination; but rather 
increased, when I saw the readiness and zeal with 
which it had been received and adopted by a large 
portion of the country. I cannot but think th^t 
it has not undergone, and, indeed, that it cannot 
safely undergo, that severe investigation which 
can alone establish the validity of a great consti- 
tutional pretension, so recent in its origin, and so 
important in its consequences. 

I desire, sir, not to be misunderstood. The 
question I ain examining relates to the constitu- 
tional right of an American citizen to take hia 
slaves to any Territory of the United States, and 
there to hold them, whatever may be the prohibi- 
tion of the local law, and not to the authority of 
Congress to restrain him by legal enactments, 
which I entirely deny, whether they come in the 
form of an ordinance or of a Wilniot proviso. 

It is not a little extraordinary that, after all the 
complaints we have heard upon this subject. Con- 
gress has not passed a single law excludingany man 
or projierty from the Mexican acquisitions. Not 
one. ISievi- Mexico and Utah remain just as open 
to the admission of slavery at this hour as they 
were the liour they pussed into the possession of 
the United States; and its exclusion from Califor- 
nia is the act of the people, assembled in conven- 
tion to form tlieir constitution, and not the act of 
the General Government. 

Mr. Rhett, indeed, in a remarkable speech in 
this body, remarkable for an American citizen in 
an American Legislature, undertook, by a peculiar 
process, to hold this Government responsible for 



9 



the measure — making it one sin the more in his long 
catalogue of offenses. 

Syllogistically his argument runs thus. 

You have no right to pass the Wilmot proviso. 

You admitted California into the Union. 

California inserted the Wilmot proviso into her 
constitution. 

Therefore you passed the Wilmot proviso. 

Such are the premises and the conclusions 
charged by Mr. Rhett upon another Senator, as 
the doctrine of the latter, but assumed by the 
former as his own, when he said: "Sir, the Sen- 
ator was right." 

Sir, the Senators were wrong, both of them 
wrong, if Mr. Rhett understood, as 1 doubt, the 
proposition intended to be advanced by the mem- 
ber referred to. I have put the argument in the 
syllogistic form, omitting its details, that the pro- 
cess may be the more apparent, and the conclu- 
sion the more satisfactory, or unsatisfactory, as 
it is approved or disapproved; a compound syl- 
logism, I think they call this form in the schools. 
But all the subtleties of verbal metaphysics, from 
the days of Aristotle downwards, with their ma- 
jor and minor terms, their copulas and predicates, 
and all the other machinery by which words 
usurp the place of ideas, could not establish the 
truth of such a conclusion, nor persuade the 
American people, that because a State excludes 
or admits slavery by its constitution. Congress is 
responsible for that act when it provides for the 
admission of such State into the Union. I re- 
peat, not an act of the General Government has 
touched this claim of right in the slightest degree; 
and if ever an American might by law take slaves 
to any of the regions acquired from Mexico, he 
may do it yet, so far as regards the operation of 
Congressional legislation. It is a jiidicial question 
which may at any time be brought before the ju- 
dicial department of our Government. 

And this brings me to the consideration of the 
true ground of these complaints, and how far they 
have any real foundation. 

The South is excluded from the Territories, robbed 
of them, plundered of them, and they are appropriated 
to the J^orth ! 

Now, is this so, Mr. President.' What pre- 
vents a southern man from going to any of those 
regions under the same circumstances as a north- 
ern man, if he chooses? I know of nothing. 
Physically one can go as well as the other, for, 
in the language of a great dramatic poet, both have 
" eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, sorrows, af- 
fections, passions, fed with the same food, hurt 
with the same weapons, subject to the same dis- 
eases, healed by the same means, warmed and 
cooled by the same winter and summer." 

If there is no physical mcapacity, neither is 
there a legal one in the way of emigrants from 
the North or from the South. All are equally free 
to go at their pleasure. The statute-book is with- 
out a single prohibition upon the subject. 

Where, then, is this unjust exclusion, this act 
of atrocious robbery on the part of the General 
Government? It certainly is not an act of com- 
mission, for Congress has not legislated on the 
subject at all. It must be robbery by omission, 
a new sin in the decalogue. The existing laws 
of the country render the condition of slavery an 
illegal one, and it was contended that the act of 
annexation, and the constitutional equality, which 



is its immediate and necessary consequence, ab- 
rogated this provision, and that a slaveholder was 
as free to hold his peculiar property there as are 
the inhabitants themselves to hold any other spe- 
cies of property. Well, this is obviously a right 
which, if it exist, cannot be taken away, and 
which may, at any time, be enforced before the 
judicial tribunals. It has not even been touched 
by congressional action, and it is a mere perver- 
sion of terms to talk of robbery, where the right 
and the remedy, whatever these may be, are in 
just as much force as ever, so far as regards con- 
gressional legislation. It is a robbery without a 
robber, an aggression without an aggressor., an 
injury with none to commit it, and none to benefit 
by it. 

I repeat, then, what prevents a southern man 
from going to any of these Mexican acquisitions? 
The only incapacity alleged, is the inability to 
hold slaves there. And this inability, if it exist, 
results from the law of the place, and, in point of 
fact, is inconsistent with the assumption of a con- 
stitutional right, and would fall before it, could it 
be established. But, leaving to others to recon- 
cile this contradiction, I have to remark that this 
difficulty may resolve itself into two objections; 
first, that slavery is so necessary to human comfort, 
to comfortable existence, indeed, that our southern 
brethren cannot live where it is not established, 
and that to exclude it, is to exclude them from 
any portion of the earth, however otherwise de- 
sirable. Now, sir, I can admit no such position. 
I have too high an opinion of the people of the 
South to believe that they cannot accommodate 
themselves to any social system of which slavery 
does not form an essential part. This is a very 
different question from its established existence in 
a community of which we are members. There 
we may uphold it from the conviction that im- 
mediate ruin would follow its extinction in any 
manner yet offered to public consideration. Upon 
this subject I should feel just as the South feels, 
were I a resident there, and should hold in abhor- 
rence every external effort to interfere with this 
momentous question. But far otherwise is the 
proposition, that to live in a non-slaveholding com- 
munity is a sacrifice which amounts to an inter- 
diction against entering into it, an utter exclusion 
from its advantages. Why, sir, people from 
slaveholding Stales practically contradict such an 
assumption every day, by migrating to other 
States where slavery does not exist, as they are 
continually doing; and I presume no one will 
deny that human comfort and the blessings of 
civilized life are to be found in many communi- 
ties, at home and abroad, from which slavery has 
been excluded, or where it never existed. It is 
worse than idle to advance such a proposition. It 
is rebuked by the experience of the world. 

The second olijection which I propose to con- 
sider, connected with this alleged seizure of the 
public domain, is, that a southern man can not go 
there because he cannot take his property with 
him, and is thus excluded by peculiar considera- 
tions from his share of the common territory. 

So far as this branch of the subject connects 
itself with slaves, regarded merely as property, it 
is certainly true that the necessity of leaving and 
of disposing of them may put the owners to in- 
convenience — to loss, indeed — a state of things 
incident to all emigration to distant regions; for 



10 



there are many species of that property, which jj 
constitutes the common stock of society, that can- ij 
not be taken there. Some because they are pro- jl 
hibiied by the hwvsof nature, as houses and farms, : 
others because they are proliibited by the laws of j 
man, as slaves, incorporated companies, monopo- i 
lies, and many interdicted articles; and others,; 
again, because they are prohibited by statistical j 
laws, which regulate the transportation of prop- j 
erty, and virtually confine much of it within cer- jj 
tain limits which it cannot overcome, in conse-ji 
quence of the expense attending distant removal; , 
and among these latter articles are cattle, and much i: 
of the property which is everywhere to be found. |j 
The remedy in all these cases is the same, and is 1 
equally applicable to all classes of proprietors, f: 
whether living in Massachusetts, or New York, '\ 
or South Carolina, and that is to convert all these 
various kinds of property into the universal rep- ^ 
resentative of value, money, and to take that- to 
these new regions, whei-e it will command what- 
ever may be necessary to comfort or to prosperous 
enterprise. In all these instances the practical re- 
sult is the same, and the same is the condition of, 
equality. | 

I listened with great interest to the eloquent re- ', 
marks of the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. 
Badger] upon this whole subject, and especially 
to those in which he depicted, with equal force and 
feeling, the painful circumstances connected with 
the disruption of those ties of habit and affection 
which bind every just master to his slaves, and 
particularly to those domestic slaves most inti- 
mately associated with his family. This is so, sir, 
beyond doubt, and it is among the harsh trials 
which make jiart of the shifting scenes of life, • 
in which v;e are all engaged. The northern emi- 
grant has his full share of these sacrifices; for I 
rarely, indeed, does he fail to leave behind him ' 
some of the dearest objects of his affections, too 
often with little hope ot rejoining them on this side 
of the grave. These scenes of sorrow belong to 
that life of change which almost makes part of the 
American character. But, painful as they are, 
they cannot enter into the determination of legal or 
constitutional rights which a|)peal to rigid princi- 
ples, and not to the kindlier emotions of the heart. 
It follows that ail the citizens of the United 
States have equal claims to go to the national do- 
main, under equal circumstances, each responsible 
to the laws, atid each entitled to take whatever the 
laws permit. Otherwise, as strange a confusion 
would exist in the legal systems of the " Terri- 
tories" as existed in the language of the world, 
when the primitive race was scattered upon the 
plains of Sliinar, and lolien one man could not toi- 
derstand anothn-'s speech. The tenure and the in- 
cidents of property would not be regulated Ijy the 
laws of the country where it would be enjoyed, 
but by the laws of the country whence it came. 

Such a principle would strike at independent 
and necessary legislation, at many police laws, at 
sanitary laws, and at laws for the protection of 
public and private morals. Ardent spirits, deadly 
poisons, implements of gaming, as well as various 
articles, doubtful foreign bank bills, among others, 
injurious to a prosperous condition of a new so- 
ciety, would be placed beyond the reach of legisla- 
tive interdiction, whatever might be the wants or 
the wishes of the country upon the subject. For 
the constitutional right by which it ia claimed that 



these species of property may be taken by the 
owners to the "territory" of the United States, 
cannot be controlled, if it exist by the local Legisla- 
tures; for that might lead, and in many cases 
would lead, to the destruction of its value. If ap- 
prentices were made property, and their term of 
service should be extended by any member of the 
confederation to the age of sixty years, or to the 
full term of life, or if peonage shallbe introduced, 
or white slavery be established by indenture, or 
in any other form, these new kinds of servitude 
would be placed beyond the reach of the territorial 
laws, and would introduce themselves wherever 
the public domain exists. And can the peonage 
of New Mexico be carried by right to Minnesota.' 
Or, had California retained it, would the laws reg- 
ulating it have extended themselves immediately 
overall the Territories.' And certainly the case 
put by the Senator from Massachusetts tests and 
illustrates this claim; for if polygamy should be 
established by law, as it is by usage in Utah, and 
should make part of its constitution, these con- 
temners of the word of God and of the feelings of 
man, might transfer themselves with their harems 
to any of the Territories, and there live in open 
contempt of law and religion. 

It is evident, if this doctrine is sound, that the 
jurisprudence of a country would not be regulated 
by its condition, nor by the wants nor wishes of 
its inhabitants, but by thirty-one remote Legisla- 
tures, equally indifferent to its interests, and igno- 
rant of its necessities. Such a system would be 
a new thing undei- the sun, the aphorism of the wise 
man of Israel to the contrary notwithstanding. 
For, it will be observed that the cases assumed, 
which touch both the principle and the practice of 
the demand, are those where the right to hold the 
property is prohiliited by the local laws; and, in- 
deed, this necessarily results from the nature cf 
things; for if property in the articles were recog- 
nized as a legal condition, the controversy would 
be over, without any investigation into the relative 
position of the States and the '' Territory," or the 
Territories, or the consequences it brings with it. 
What law, then, governs the incidents of such 
prohibited property, thus claimed to be held in 
opposition to, the law of the place.' Not the 
Constitution or laws of the United States, for they 
do not touch the subject at all. Nor has Con- 
gress, if it had the disposition, the slightest au- 
thority thus to meddle with the internal affairs of 
: the people of these communities. We have only 
i the laws of the respective States to fall back upon 
! to regulate the tenure of this species of property, 
land to protect its enjoyment; aided, indeed, by 
some inscrutable operation of the Constitution of 
the United Slates, which gives a kind of motive 
power to the property laws of the several States, 
a process more easily asserted than proved or ex- 
plained. 

And we are thus brought to this strange prac- 
tical result, that in all controversies, relative to 
these prohibited articles, it is not the statute-book 
of the country where they are to be held, which 
must be consulted to ascertain the rights of the 
parties, but the statute-books of other Govern- 
ments, whose citizens, thus, in effect, bring their 
laws with them, and hold on to them. 

But in proceeding further in this investigation, 
our difficulties are increased, instead of being di- 
minished. 1 do not know that 1 understand pre- 



11 



cisely the position which is assumed with respect to ] 
the extent of this principle of exemption, whether 
it applies to the citizens of one State so as to en- 
able them to take to the "Territories" of the ■ 
United States, and there hold any property rec.og- ' 
nized as such by tlie laws of such Slate, or whether 
the exemption becomes universal, allowing all the 
citizens of the United States to take any prohibited 
articles to this region which are declared to be 
property by the laws of any one of the States, 
although not recognized as property by the laws 
of their own. Or, in other words, to use the ex- 
pression of an eminent southern Senator, whether 
this "expansion of recognition" at once spreads 
the laws of property in eadi State of the Union 
over every Territory, for all the citizens of the 
United States, or only for its own citizens, that 
they may enjoy the same rights in their new resi- 
dences as in their old ones. If the former, this 
expansion is not only wonderfully expansive as 
to territorial jurisdiction, but as to jurisdiction 
over persons, bringing within the elastic grasp of 
a State statute the whole body of the American 
people. Nor, indeed, do I know whether all those 
who concur in a claim of exemption, concur as to 
its extent and the consequences it brings with it. 
The doctrine, as I gather it from the declarations i 
which I have met with upon this subject, and some 
of which 1 have quoted, and from the nature of, 
the wrong complained nf, seemed to me, as I have 
already said, to carry with it a claim on behalf of 
the citizens of each State to take with them their i 
property which they hold at home, and to enjoy | 
It in this common territory. . I 

And this seems to have been the position taken I 
by Mr. Calhoun; for I observed, in reviewing the 
debates in the Senate upon this subject, that in 
answer to a remark of Mr. Niles, he placed this 
right, amons: other grounds, " upon the comity of 
the States of this Union." What that means in 
the investigation of a constitutional cUiim, as I do 
not understand, I shall not undertake to investi- 
gate. Mr. Niles, in reply, stated the proposition 
of Mr. Calhoun to be that citizens from any of 
the States are entitled to enter any of the territo- 
ries and enjoy " the same rights of property there 
which thev enjoyed in the States from which they 
removed." As this position was stated without 
contradiction, we may assume that it expresses 
the views of Mr. Calhoun. 

The wrong complained of is, that the exclusion 
of any articles of property, slaves, for instance, 
from the public domain, excludes from the enjoy- 
ment of such domain all the citizens of the State 
where such property exists, and thus deprives 
them of a constitutional right. This is the injury; 
but does the remedy stop with its reparation, or 
does it go far beyond it? A citizen of Massachu- 
Betts holds property in that State, and, by virtue 
of its laws, whose introduction into Oregon we 
will suppose is interdicted by local legislation. 
A citizen of South Carolina is in the same condi- 
tion with respect to some other kind of property. 
The injury to each, and which, it is said, prac- 
tically excludes him, is, that he cannot take his 
property with him, and is thus deprived of his 
conBtiititiiinal " equality of enjoyment." But can 
each tJike advantage of the laws of another State, 
and introduce articles not recognized as such "by 
those of hie own.' If the principle extends thus 
ikr, it c«rtainly reaches beyond the right it as- 



sumes to ^uard. The wrong and the remedy are 
out of just proportion to each other. The citizen 
of South Carolina, such is the claim, cannot en- 
joy his portion of the " public land" without the 
power to take his slaves with him, and there ends 
his complaint. The citizen of Massachusetts is 
subject to the same incapacity, unless he can take 
his bank bills with him, or some other prohibited 
property, and there also ends his complaint. By 
removing the impediment in each case, we satisfy 
the original demand, but does a new one then ■ 
arise which secures to a northern man the right to 
buy slaves and to take them to the common terri- 
tory, not because he cannot go without them, 
which is the first proposition, but because some 
one flse, under other circutnstances, enjoys that 
privilege.' And, e coiirej-so. does a southern man 
possess the same right? If this be so, equality 
brings about strange changes in the condition as 
well as the pretensions of the parties. It first en- 
ables the slaveholder to overcome the local legis- 
lation by introducing his slaves where they are 
prohibited, in order to place him on an equality 
with the man who cannot hold slaves by the laws 
of his own State, and then it enables the latter to 
purchase and introduce slaves also, in order that 
the inequality created by equality may itself be 
I made equal. 1 do not pretend to understand this 
I process. I only state it. 

I But if the remedy is confined to a redress of 
; the wrong complained of — that is, to the establish- 
; meiit of the right to introduce into the common 
i" territory" all property which a man holds in 
I his own State, then we enter a new field of con- 
troversy. It is not necessary I should explore it. 
I leave that to those who favor the doctrine. But 
I it would work extraordinary results in any coun- 
try under heaven where it might be apphed. Em- 
i igrants from different portions of the Union v/ould 
have different rights; some to hold one kind of 
property, and some another; each bringing with 
him the laws of the State he left to overrule the 
! local laws, and to regulate the incidents of prop- 
erty prohibited by the latter. Instead of a har- 
monious system of jurisprudence, equally control- 
! ling all the affairs of a country, there would be 
]a system measuring their rights by the places 
I whence they came, with different codes for the dif- 
i ferent emigrants; not brought together, but kept 
j apart by this strange pretension, with favored 
1 classes holding property prohibited to the rest of 
I the community. He who believes that such a 
I state of things would be the fair consequence of 
any claim under the Constitution of the United 
j States, or that it would be tolerated by publie 
opinion, in State or Territory, understands the in- 
! stitutions of his»country, and the character of his 
j countrymen, very differently from what I do. 
; Certainly, rights of property originating else- 
where, and recognized and protected in th coun- 
I try to which such property is transferred, may 
sometimes involve questions touching the laws of 
I the place whence it came; but such questions carry 
with them no claim by which those foreign laws 
I override and overrule the jurisprudence of another 
I country. They are auxiliary to the ends of justice 
i in determining the original rights of the parties; 
I but they do not take the place, and supply the 
I phice, of the domestic laws, nor undertake to su- 
persede them. 
I Nor are the difficulties obviated, though they 



12 



may in some measure be changed by assuming 
that it is the duty of theTerritorial Legishitures to 
pass the necessary laws recognizing the existence 
and defining the incidents and protecting the en- 
joyment of this interdicted property. Asa prac- 
tical measure, there would be extreme difficulty j 
in procuring such legislation, and in carrying it 
into effect, where both depend upon the action of a I 
remote community; which, from the very nature 
of the proposition, must be opposed to the intro- 
duction of slavery, and where public opinion is ■ 
as powerful as in any portion of our country, no 
matter where the other may be. I do not touch ; 
tlie question of congressional interference, having 
heretofore attempted to show that Congress has j 
no right to legislate on the subject of slavery any : 
more in a Territory than in a State. Its power, | 
arising from necessity, is e.xhausted by the estab- ! 
lishment and regulation of proper judicial tribu- 
nals, leaving to the Territorial Legislatures the 
exercise of their peculiar local functions, involving j 
all questionsconcerning the nature and incidents of 
property, allowing or in dieting it at their pleasure. I 
Once concede that Congress has any power over '• 
the question of slavery, that moment it has all 
power, as no constitutional barrier can be pointed 
out to which it may go and not overpass. j 

As 1 have already remarked, the difficulties 
which surround this question must arise in a po- 
litical community whence certain articles of prop- 
erty, such as slaves, are excluded by a general 
law, for otherwise the subject is free from embar- 
rassments. Well, the power of the local Legisla- 
ture to prohibit the introduction of slaves, as a 
general proposition , could , u nder no circu mstances, 
be successfully disputed. It is a branch of the 
legislative authority, this power to regulate the 
various relations of life, social and legal, the rela- 
tion of husband and wife, of fiarent and child, of 
guardian and ward, of deijtor and creditor, and all 
similar conditions recognized by our institutions. 
And whether with some, and that is my position, 
you confine rightful congressional action to the 
nece.^sary organization of territorial government, 
leaving to the people, as the legitimate consequence, 
the enjoyment of all legislative powers not incon-[ 
sistent with the Constitution; or whether, with 
others, you find an authority vested in Congress! 
to prescribe the e.xtent to which territorial legis- ' 
lation shall reach, the result, so far as respects this' 
question of jurisdiction, will be the same. We can , 
only look to the Constitution of the United States 
for a barrier to local legislation; and it will be 
found that these acts, as well as others preceding 
them upon territorial organization, grant general 
powers of legislation, which include the relation 
of master and servant, as well as all the other con- ' 
diiions of social life. I}iit these bills go further in ' 
this important matter than any of their predeces- 1 
Bors in the history of our. legislation. Tliey ex- 
pressly provide that it is not tiie intention of Con- j 
gress " to legislate slavery into any Territory or j 
Sta'e, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the \ 

f)eople thereof fierfectly free to form and regu- 1 
ate their domestic institutions in their own way,i 
Bubject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." When, therefore, it is claimed that the 
state of slavery is beyond tlie reach of these local 
Legislatures, that clMJni, befure it is allowed, must 
be estulilished as one secured by the Constitution 
of the United Stales, and thus placed beyond 



the reach of congressional or territorial legisla- 
tion. 

But, sir, how far is this exemption from the lex 
loci to be carried ? Does ittieprive the local Legis- 
lature of all power to regulate the incidents of 
this kind of property.' If it does, and the Legis- 
lature act at all, they must become merely a cham- 
ber to register the laws of the respective States, 
by virtue of which the property makes its entrance 
into the new jurisdiction; and, in that event, there 
would be as many various kinds of tenure aa 
there are States thus contributing to the jurispru- 
dence of another country. For we all know that 
there are important diiferences in the laws regu- 
lating the condition of slavery, the distribution 
and the treatment of slaves, and for many other 
purposes connected with the institution. If all 
these are at the disposition of the Territorial Leg- 
islature, nothing is more certain than that, in politi- 
cal communities opposed to slavery, the power 
would be so exercised as to amount to a practical 
interdiction, by meliorating the condition of the 
slaves to such a degree as virtually to destroy the 
value of the prof)erty. 

1 do not urge these consideration as objections 
to the existence of the naked right, but as practical 
difficulties in the way of its execution, which would 
render it of little, if, indeed, of any value. 

But, in the mean time, and without local legisla- 
tion, what is the state of this relation of master and 
servant, and what law governs it? How is the 
property to be sold? How distributed? How 
protected? What, in fact, becomes of the vast 
variety of subjects connected with it, and regu- 
lated by statutory enactments in the various slave ^ 
States? Does the law accompany the property as 
it creates it, and secure its enjoyment in its new 
domicile? 

But 1 shall not pursue these inquiries, though 
inseparable from the establishment of the full right 
claimed, but which, after all, must depend essen- 
tially upon the local Legislature, acting within the 
limits of its constitutional discretion. No system 
of jurisprudence can prevail without its action. 
And the practical result is too obvious to require 
further examination. And what would be the 
condition of the residents of a country immedi- 
ately on its annexation to the United Slates, and 
of European emigrants who might remove there? 
In answer to a question of Mr. Dickinson, Mr. 
Yulee carried this doctrine to its legitimate con- 
clusion, and said, that if Canada were purchased 
or conquered to-morrow, though its laws prohibit 
slavery, yet slaves might be taken there immedi- 
ately from the southern States, the local prohibi- 
tion being prostrated by this " equality of enjoy- 
tnent. " In that event, what would become of the 
Canadian and of the European emigrant ? Is the 
prohibition prostrated also for them ? And if so, 
how ? For they have no constitutional " equality 
of en joy men t" (IS belons^ing to coeijriah in the Cunfed- 
eracy. The old residents might, perhaps, be saved 
by some special provision in the treaty, but with- 
out it they would find themselves subject to the 
preexisting laws, and might be surrounded by a 
a[iecies of property they could not possess. This 
denrtand of exem[>tion leads to strange results. 

And what would be the operation on the exist- 
ing: Terri'ories? for they have no " consiitutional 
etiualily," no "comity of States," to fall back 
upon. They present equitable considerations for 



13 



equality, but in point of constitutional right, by 
which alone such a question can be tested, they 
do not come within the principle laid down. And 
if not, no emigrant from one Territory to another 
can take h.is property where it is prohibited, nor 
could any person, after becoming a citizen of any 
Territory, introduce or hold if, and he would thus 
find himself in a labood class, little suited to the 
pride or feelings of an American — a state of things, 
indeed, which could not last any v^here in our coun- 
try. For it must be recollected that the grant of 
jurisdiction by these bills to the Territorial Legis- 
latures over the subject of slavery is a plenary 
one, restrained only by the Constitution. They 
have, of course, the power to control it by abol- 
ishing, or by establishing and regulating it, just so 
far as the Constitution does not stand in their way; 
and how far is that when they choose to prohibit 
it? Until some one enjoying a constitutional ex- 
emption presents himself for entrance into one of 
these communities. He claims that the Constitu- 
tion guarantees his admission there with his slaves, 
and that he is thus placed beyond the reach of the 
local interdiction. Still, however, the law remains 
to exert its power upon all who are not freed from 
its operation by higher authority. If this would 
not make a privileged class in this country of 
boasted equality 1 do not know what would. 
Hereditary aristocratic distinctions have often owed 
their origin to far more trivial causes. 1 feel that 
I should waste my own time, and that of the Sen- 
ate, by the further consideration of a proposition 
conducting to such results. 

But, Mr. President, let us look at this matter 
in another aspect. Who are the robbers and who 
are the robbed; the plunderers and the plundered ? 
Who are the authors, and to what end, and to 
whose benefit or injury, is this great scheme of 
empire stealing? this act of political rapacity, 
without excuse as without example in the history 
of human selfishness? There was no strife " be- 
tween the herdsmen "in thedaysof Abram, though 
now, as then, all parties were brethren; "nor 
was their substance so great that they could not 
live together." "The whole land was before 
them," and is before us; and was enough for 
them and theirs, and is enough for us and ours to 
the fiftieth and the hundreth generation. 1 repeat, 
by whom and against whom is this gratuitous 
injury committed ? It is the South, upon which the 
North has laid its heavy hand, and seized for a part 
the property which belongs to the whole. Now, 
sir, it is a most useless injustice; a far-reaching 
injury, beyond the usual ken of even the most 
sharp-sighted politician. For there is land enough 
and to spare for the whole country; for the North 
and South, the East and West, for long ages to 
come. Folly and crime, it is true, often go to- 
gether;*but the folly of a premeditated robbery, 
whose advantage is to inure to a remote posterity, 
is rare even in the catalogue of human enormities. 
I speak of the enjoyment of the land itself, the 
object of the "robbery," as I put out of view 
considerations having relation to a political bal- 
ance. That no such plan of perpetual equality 
in the Confederacy was in prospect, any more 
than in existence, when the convention surren- 
dered its woik to the people is obvious from cir- 
cumstanre.s which make part of our history, and 
which ehow that the States to be formed from | 
the then existing territory within the original 1 



limits of the United States would necessarily, 
from arrangements previously made, and which 
the Constitution provided for carrying into efiect, 
increase the numerical superiority of the non- 
slaveholding States. 

But what is the South which is tluis deprived 
of its just rights by an act of rapacity, consum- 
mating its work by the exclusion of slavery ? Not 
all the people of the South, for all are not slave- 
holders; and those who are not are not prevented 
from emigrating because they cannot carry their 
property with them, which is the alleged disquali- 
fication that deprives them of their rights. It is 
not the "South" to which the entrance of the 
" territory and otherproperty of the United States" 
is thus practically interdicted, but the southern 
slavehoRlers, while it is as 0|ien to the southern 
non-slaveholders as to every citizen of the North. 
The manifest error in this pretension of a local ex- 
clusion will become more obvious if we ascertain 
the proportion between those who do and those 
who do not hold slaves where the institution of 
slavery exists, in order to show which of these 
parties may, with the more propriety, be called the 
"South," so far as numbers constitute a politi- 
cal community; and far, indeed, does that element 
of power reach in this great day of human rights. 
For this purpose, the Superintendent of the Cen- 
sus has been good enough to answer certain inqui- 
ries made to him, the result of which I will briefly 
state. 

The number of slaves in the United States is 
3,204,077. The white population of the slave- 
holding States is 6,222,418. How are these slaves 
divided among the whites? By an approximative 
estimate, it appears that the whole number of 
slaveholders is about 350,000. Of these some are, 
of course, females, and some under age, so that 
the adult male slaveholders fall short of that num- 
ber; but it is sutficiently near the truth for all the 
purposes I have in view. It would, of course, be 
unjust to institutea comparison between this class 
of property holders and the 5,872,418 persons 
who do not fall within that category, when look- 
ing to the effects of emigration, because many 
of the latter are minors and females, whose resi- 
dence or removal is independent of themselves. 
But assuming the white male population above 
the age of twenty-one years as the class respon- 
sible for emigration, by ascertaining what pro- 
portion the slaveholders bear to this class, we shall 
be alile to form not an accurate but a satisfactory 
estimate of the effect of this supposed interdiction 
upon the South. 

There are in the slaveholding Spates about 
1,389,836 white male persons above^the age of 
twenty-one years, which, divided by 350,000, the 
number of slaveholders, gives about three adult 
white male persons for each person holding slaves, 
constituting three-fourths of the whole adult male 
population of the country. The Slate of New 
Jersey is reported as containing 236 slaves. The 
number is so small that that State has been omit- 
ted in this calculation. The Superintendent of 
the Census estimated that the population of all 
the families interested in slaves is nearly equal to 
2,000,000. 

Now, sir, it is evident that there is a great ma- 
jority of the people of tbe southern States who 
are free to go where they will, and as they will, 
without any of the sacrifices, or embarrassments, 



14 



or impediments charged as resulting from this 
peculiar species of property. 

I do not undertake to state what is the true pro- 
portion between this majority and minority. I 
merely give the basis of the calculation, so that 
every one may form his ov.'n conclusion. 1 seek 
moral results, and not absolute precision. 

How can liiis minority, estimate it as you will, 
respectable as it is by character, position, and 
intelligence, be called the South ? or how can the 
North be charged with appropriating land to it- 
self to which so great a majority of the southern 
population may go without even the pretext of a 
restriction? It is bad enough arbitrarily to exclude 
one man from the enjoyment of his rights, and 
Btill more to exclude many, however mistaken the 
motive may be; but it would be worse than all to 
extend this injustice to a great community, regard- 
less of everytiiing but power on the one side and 
local position on the other. The North has not 
done this to the South, notwithstanding Mr. 
Rhett's declaration in this very Hall, that by one 
fell swoop the Government had sought to extin- 

fuish life, liberty, and propertyamong nearly one 
alf of the citizens of the United States. 

And how do these circumstances justify the 
grave accusation of ?dr. Calhoun, that " the non- 
slaveholding States desired to exclude the citizens 
of the slaveholding States from emigrating with 
their property to the Territory, in order to give 
their citizens, and those that may permit the ex- 
clusive right to settle there?" &c. 

And how far are they compatible with the belief 
announced by the Protesting Senators, that" this 
Government could never be brought to admit a 
State (California) presenting itself under such 
circumstances, if it were not for the purpose of 
excluding the people of the slaveholding States 
from all opportunity of settling with their prop- 
erty in that Territory?" 

Mr. President, the unfortunate predisposition 
in this country, when local injuries are felt from 
legislation, to attribute them to a design on the 
part of one section of the Union to oppress an- 
other has been equally unjust in the assumption, 
and mischievous in its tendency. The embargo, 
the non-intercourse, and the war of 1812, which 
bore heavily on the nortliern §tates,were charged 
by them as originating in hostile motives, and 
with a view to crush them. The tariff and the 
measures connected with it, and the course of 
events growing out of the subject of slavery, 
were peculiarly offensive to the South, and were 
considered by them as conclusive evidence of a 
prevailing wish, in certain parts of the Union, to 
destroy tlieir piosperity. Now, sir, all this was 
equally unjust. These measures originated in no 
such motive — nor were they pursued with any 
such object. The great body of the people wiio 
advocated them ru) doubt thought they were con- 
Stitutionaland necessary. I dissented from some of 
them; but length of years has l)rought charity, if 
not wisdom, and I have learned tliat a great com- 
munity can only be adu'Ued by honest motives, 
however erroneous the impressi<jns may be, and 
whatever selfish purposes may prompt the action 
of individuals. 

That ihe S'uuh hn.s suffered injuries from the 
course and devel(i|)rnent of public opinion in the 
North it would be unjust lo deny. Hut this is 
among the necetiiiury evila iacidetit to free institu- 



tions, and which are counterbalanced by far supe- 
rior advantages. The North is exposed to the 
same danger and difficulty by the industrious dis- 
semination of views striking at the very founda- 
tion of religion and social order. Jn this age of 
the world, when the spirit of inquiry is so active 
and searching, one of the evils it brings wiih it is 
an indiscriminate assault upon almost all the es- 
tablished institutions of the country. If the right 
of the southern planter to hold his slaves is called 
in question, so is the right of the northern land- 
owner to hold his land. The doctrine of equal 
distribution finds zealous advocates; but a safe 
barrier exists in the good sense and intelligence of 
the community. " Property is robbery," is the 
dogma of the founder of this school of gigantic 
plunder. These pseudo reformers are entering 
our domestic circles, and striving to break up our 
family organizations and to arrange us into eom- 
munities, making still more true the old adage 
that he is a wise child who knows his own fath- 
er. Polygamy, indiscriminate intercourse, rather, 
also finds advocates, both theoretical and practi- 
cal; and men seek by the perversions of Scripture 
to justify acts prompted by their own libidinous 
passions. Resolutions have been passed by bodies 
of men assembled in our country, demanding the 
"abolition of all neutrality," with, I suppose, 
monarchical powers; the "abolition of the Chris- 
tian system of punishment," looking probably to 
the ultimate suppression of all punishment; the 
"abolition of land monopoly," or, in other words, 
the destruction of the rights of ownership, by 
an equal distribution to-day, which, by requiring 
another to-morrow, would destroy the motive 
for individual exertion, and make the country a 
desert; " taking possession of the railroads by 
the State," which, translated into the language of 
truth, means the robbing of the owners of that 
species of property; and, to complete the work, 
they demand the " abolition of laws for the ob- 
servance of the Sabbath;" "the abolition of 
prayer in Congress;" and " the abolition of oaths 
upon the Bible." All these fundamental changes 
have been called for by conventions assembled for 
the expression of these and similar opinions. 
And in abody calling itself the Industrial Congress, 
not long since sitting in this city, it was 

'^ Resolved, That by tlio land reloiin we un(ler>:tnn(l the 
entire aboljiinii and aiiiiullnieiit of all projitity value or 
ownership in the soil," Sac. 

Now, sir, these may be considered pregnant 
signs; and they certainly invoke changes which 
would be as fatal to the North as any demanded 
l)y the wildest visiiuiary or the veriest hypocrite 
in the condition of the South would lie to that sec- 
tion of the Union. And yet there is no danger 
from these mental or moral delusions. Reason 
and patriotism will assert their empire, aud main- 
tain their true supremacy. If no government is 
to be tolerated whfr-' such doctrines are abroad, 
we shall soon bid adieu to human restraints. No, 
the remedy is to be found, not in the rhanije of 
political insiituiions, Init in the difl"iisi'>ii of educa- 
tion, and the free discussion and examination of 
whatever proposiiions are preseiiifd as lending to 
meliorate the condiiion of mankiml. Truth was 
never permanenily injuied by free inquiry. You 
cannot control investigation; anil you must take 
it, even with its abuses, for the blessings ii lirings 
with it. A highly respectable and respected memr 



15 



ber of the House of Representatives said upon 
this suhject, some time since, "You think that 
slavery is a great evil. Very well, think so; but 
keep your thought to yourselves." 1 am sure, 
sir, this honorable member must have uttered 
this sentiment white feeling strongly the injurious 
aspersions upon the South too frequent in the 
North, for he knows as well as any one the im- 
possibility of proscribing the right of speech, and 
of confiningthethoughtsof manto his own bosom. 
You mijjht just as well undertake to stop the 
tide of the ocean as to stop the tide of human 
opinion; and though both of these mighty agent.=!, 
in their resistless march, are felt for evil as well 
as for good, yet their healthful action is infinitely 
better than would be their stagnant quietude. 

But the speaker himself did, as he had a full 
right to do, without regard to this prohibition — he 
examined the whole "subject in the Hal! of the 
Nation, and of course could not expect that his 
precept and not his practice would be followed by j 
others. After all, sir, he had powerful reasons i 
for denouncing this perpetual warfare upon a 
large portion of the Union, and upon a subject of 
domestic policy vital to their interest and to their 
safety. But we cannot reach it by legal means: j 
we cannot stop the progress of opinion and dis- j 
cussion. We can give them, however, a right di- j 
rection, and that should be the effort of every true | 
American in the non-slaveholding States, whose ! 
feelings and whose intellect have not been seized 
captive by this strange hallucination. He should 
stand up for the rights of the South by standing 
up for ttie obligations of the Constitution, and ex- 1 
pose that hollow philanthropy which seeks through 
blood and fire the emancipation of a race of beings 
who may itecome free in God's good time, and 
when he h^is prepared them for it — how I know 
not — but who, if made free to-morrow, would, at 
least those of them who survived the struggle, be- 
come the most miserable and abject population on 
the face of the globe. 

The status of slavery has existed from the ear- 
liest ages of the world; and regretted, as it is and 
must be by the moralist, it is a great practical po- 
litical question, which every established commu- 
nity where it is recognized must adjust for itself. 
The Revolution found it in most of the States, 
and there it was at the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion, and in many of them it yet remains, making 
part of the rights and guarantees of tlie Confed- 
eration. To touch it by the General Government 
would be to shake to its corner-stone our whole 
political edifice. Like other human institutions. 
It has neither all the advantages its friends claim 
for it, nor all the evils its enemies deplore. Be- 
lieving it a misfortune for any country, I regret its 
establishment; but looking upon it as an existing 
condition, 1 am free to confess, thatthough it may 
come to an end , and 1 hope it may peacefully and 
justly, I see no way in which this can be effected 
but by leaving it to those most interested in. it, 
and to the process they may find it best to adopt. 
Any external interference would only aggravate 
the evils and the dangers, and this our experience 
has already shown. As to the frightful pictures 
which have been drawn of cruelty on one side, and 
suflfering and wretchedness on the other, they are 
gross exaggerations, by whatever modern Gulliver 
fabricated, whether man or strong -minded woman, 
originating in ignorance or malevolence, and min- 



istering to the worst of passions both at home 
and abroad. I know something of the condition of 
the slaves, and 1 believe, in general, they are 
treated with all the humanity which can reasona- 
bly be expected in their situation; with a humanity 
honorable to the proprietors as a class, and, to say 
the least of it, quite as well as they would be in 
the northern States, had this institution not been 
abolished there, and far better than by many 
whose philanthropy is shown by the railing and 
reproachful words they utter, and not by the relief 
they contribute to objects of misery. And I know 
something of the condition of the poverty-stricken 
population of Europe, and of a large ]iortion of 
the inhabitants, who lie down in sorrow and get up 
in care, and who pass their lives in want, many 
of them in a state of destitution utterly unknown 
in this country; and 1 have seen far more misery 
in the proudest capitals of Europe than 1 ever saw 
in our own favored land among white or black, 
bond or free. A recent remark in the London 
Times better illustrates this frightful condition of 
human want than the most labored description: 

"In London, the center and core of British 
wealth and puarasaicai- exclllsi veness, one hun- 
dred thorsand human beings get up every mornino 
without knowing where they are to find a meal, 
except from a passing job or crime." 

One would think that here was field enough for 
the exertion of any reasonable quantity of philan- 
thropy, and that until these awful scenes of hu- 
man s'uffering were removed, it would exhibit a 
much more commendable spirit to labor there for 
life first, and then for reformation, rather than to 
be sending political missionaries, under the guise 
of a universal love of mankind, to this country, 
kindly to excite one portion of the Unisn against 
another, and thus lead to a dissolution of the Con- 
federation, and to the destruction of our power 
and prosperity. What a deplorable consumma- 
tion that would be to these philanthropic English- 
men ! Certainly objects of commiseration are 
everywhere to be found, even in the most prosper- 
ous communities. Misfortune, whether produced 
by ourselves or by the chances of life, are insepar- 
able from human society. And there is no man who 
cannot look around him and find objects enough 
upon which to exhaust his benevolence, whether 
its contributions ace confined to puling sentimen- 
tality or extended to substantial offerings for the 
relief of distress. 1 have no patience with that 
costive charity which neglects the misery of its 
neighborhood, because that demands the aid of 
the purse, and seeks subjects for noisy philan- 
thropy far 'beyond its reach, because words are not 
wealth, and professions are cheaper than cash. 

If I'might presume to give an opinion upon the 
subject, I will say, that our southern brethren 
sometimes manifest too much sensitiveness at 
these ebulitions of ill-directed feelings, frequently 
sincere, but too often assumed for personal and 
political objects. A factitious importance is thus 
given to them, which they would never attain, if 
left to their natural fate. And another and yet 
greater error connected with this whole subject 
consists in the demands, altogether too exacting, 
made upon the public men of the non-slaveholding 
States, many of which I have seen, and some of 
which I have felt. No stronger proof of this pre- 
disposition can be given than the refusal, on the 
part of southern members of this body, to permit 



16 



the insertion in the fugitive-slave law of a provis- 
ion allowiniT the ri2;htof trial by jury to the person 
claimed in the county whence it might be alleged 
he had escaped on his restoration there, should he 
then demand it. 

I never could comprehend the motives for the 
rejection of tliis proposition, so just in itself, and 
which would have given great satisfaction to the 
North, and have prevented much of the hostility 
to the law. It would have been entirely compati- 
ble with the Constitution, for the delivery to the 
master would have been but a commitment, to be 
consummated and become final by the verdict of 
the jury when demanded. I was in favor of the 
general principles of the law, and was among the 
earliest to urge the justice of its passage, and the 
injury done to the South by the delay. The 
refusal to accept this proposition seemed to inter- 
pose unnecessary barriers in the way of the inves- 
tigation of questions of human liberty; for cer- 
tainly the objections which might reasonably have 
been urged against the submission of these cases 
to a northern jury, and wiiich induced me to op- 
pose the provision, had no application to a south- 
ern jury, which can have no prejudices to over- 
come in the examination of the rights of the 
parties. But not an inch of ground was yielded; 
and I determined not to give my assent to the law. 
It was a bed of Procrustes, and as 1 had no wish 
to be shortened or lengthened by a rigid adapta- 
tion to it, I found it no place for me. Had the 
northern Senators been firm upon the point, this 
tribute to a great principle, interwoven with the 
American heart and institutions, would have been 
secured. 

It requires but little exertion to swim with the 
current, while he who opposes it must put forth 
all his strength, and even th.en may become its 
victim. Popular feeling is a power hard to resist, 
' and the reproach of being a dough-face belongs to 
him who panders to it, and not to him who strives 
to maintain the constitutional rights of all, even 
in opposition to his own community, which holds 
in its hands his political life and death. This is 
precisely the condition which no southern man 
has ever had to encounter in connection with this 
grave subject, and it is precisely the condition 
which he cannot comprehend, or will not do jus- 
tice to, when the course of a northern man is in 
question. It is not enough, with too many of the 
southern politicians, that public men from the free 
States maintain, firmly and unflinchingly, the 
rights of the slavehoitting portion of the Union, 
and stand ready to meet the consequences, however 
disastrous to themselves, rather than participate 
in their violation; this, I say, is not enough; some- 
times, indeed, it is nothing, unless every opinion 
* of the South upon the general question is adopted, 
and unreserved allegiance professed to the declar- 
ation, that SLAVERY IS THE BEST CONDITION OK 
HUMAN SOCIETY. 

Now, sir, I believe no such doctrine, and not 
believing it, 1 will not profess to believe it, from 
whatever liii^h cpjarter announced. We heard it 
avowed on Saturday, by the Senator from Missis- 
sippi, [Mr. Bkown,] for whom I have sincere re- 
spect — a respect not at all diminished by this frank 
and fearless avowal of his opinions, it was the 
sentiment, also, of an eminent citizen , whose words 
of power and wisdom have often resounded though 
this Hall, and who was taken from the service of 



his country to the universalregret of the American 
people. His peculiar views upon this general 
subject, and the frame of mind with which he re- 
garded it, are indicated by his denial of the truth 
of the received axiom, as he justly called it, that 
" All men are created free and equal," a para- 
phrase of one of the incontestable rights of man 
enumerated in the Declaration of our Independence. 
But Mr. Calhoun pronounced it" utterly untrue," 
because, among other objections, he said: " Men 
are not born — infants are born. They grow to be 
men." It may serve to reconcile us to the une- 
qual distribution of intellectual power when we 
find that its highest possession insures no ex- 
emption from error; and from an error in this case, 
one would think, so obviously upon the surface, 
as not to escape detection by the humblest intelli- 
gence. It is scarcely necessary to say that the 
word MAN, in the above connection, is employed, 
as it often and legitimately is, in its generic signi- 
fication, without reference to the varieties of spe- 
cies, sex, or age. "Man that is born of a woman" 
says the book of inspiration "is of few days, 
and full of trouble." The infidel, who should 
undertake to deny the authenticity of the Scrip- 
tures, because the condition of a child is here mis- 
taken for that of a man, might easily be taught 
that it is his own ignorance, and not their error 
which he exposes. 

" The proper study of mankind is man," 
says the great English didactic poet; but it is the 
study of the human family which he recommends, 
and not any particular portion of it. But this les- 
son may teach us the effect of strong excitement 
upon the wisest and best in periods of public agi- 
tation. 

Slavery is, in my opinion, as I have said more 
than once before in the Senate, and I have no 
doubt unacceptably to many, a great evil, social 
and political, but it is an existing one, from which 
I see no escape, and for which the South is not 
responsible to the North, nor to any other tribu- 
nalbut to His who made both bond and frefe; and 
while, either in public or in private life, I have 
strength to express my views, not out of peculiar 
regard to any section of the country, but in obe- 
dience to the dictates of my own conscience, I 
shall never cease to uphold the right of the South 
to determine every question in relation to this spe- 
cies of property for themselves, and the duty of 
the whole Union to carry into elfect the constitu- 
tional provision in good faith, and with kind feel- 
ings. I do not know any northern man who is 
disposed to go beyond this.. Nor is there any 
southern man who should desireit. 

Mr. President, some time since I took occa- 
sion to give my views in relation to the subject of 
slavery, connected with the Territories, and my 
investigations led me to the consideration of two 
points; first, whether Congress has any power to 
regulate this condition in those political com- 
munities; and second, whether the people there 
may rightfully regulate it for themselves. 1 feel 
'as little dis|)osed to go over this matter again as 
the Senate can be to hear me, and I shall restrict 
myself to a very brief recapitulation, which seems 
necessary to the explanation of my present posi- 
tion. 

I contended then, as I do now, that Congress 

has no jurisdiction over the subject of slavery. 

i And the process by which I reached that conclu- 



17 



sion I will now merely touch, rather than dwell 
upon. 

The Government of the United States is one of 
limited authority, vested with no powers not ex- 
pressly granted, or not necessary to the proper 
execution of such as are. 

There is no provision in the Constitution grant- 
ing any power of legislation over the " territory 
or other property of the United States" except 
such as relates toils " regulation and disposition." 
Political jurisdiction is entirely withheld, nor is 
there any just implication which can supply this 
defect of original authority. 

As a matter of necessity, just as Mr. Madison 
defended the action of the Congress of the Confed- 
eration upon this subject, the Congress of the 
Constitution may be defended for establishing gov- 
ernments for the *' territory" of the United States, 
original or acquired, without the limits of any of 
the States, such a measure being essential to their 
welfare, indeed, to their prosperous existence. 

In the exercise of this p'ower, arising from ne- 
cessity, no more authority should be assumed than 
is required to attain the object. That object is 
the organization of territorial governments, and 
with its accomplishment fairly ends this assumed 
jurisdiction, for the people are competent to con- 
duct their own internal affairs for themselves when 
a government is once instituted ; and whatever just 
latitude of discretion there may be as to laying 
down general principles, there can be none which 
would authorize Congress to interfere with the 
local and domestic affairs of those distant commu- 
nities. There would be neither power, nor reaaon, 
nor necessity to warrant the assumption. 

So much for the authority of the Federal Le- 
gislature over this subject. 

The power of the people to legislate for them- 
selves upon all these questions of domestic policy 
is the inevitable result of the preceding principles 
and of American institutions. If Congress have 
no jurisdiction over the subject, the people must 
have it, or the most important concerns of social 
and of civil life would be left without security or 
protection. No one has ever questioned their just 
claim to regulate, by their immediate representa- 
tives, the various questions connected with their 
civil and social relations, except this relation of 
master and servant; and this exception cannot 
stand the test of any reasonable scrutiny. I am 
aware of the objections which have been urged 
against the existence of this right of self-govern- 
ment founded on the connection of the people of 
the Territories with the Government of the Uni- 
ted States; and I have been amazed at the subtle 
arguments, politico-metaphysical indeed, which 
have been presented against the enjoyment of one 
of the most sacred rights which God has given to 
man. The inseparable union between representa- 
tion and the regulation of the domestic affairs of a 
community, including taxation, is one of the cardi- 
nal principles of American political faith laid down 
in our State papers, taught in our schools, and 
triumphantly asserted' and defended on the bat- 
tle-field; — a principle which the Continental Con- 
gress, in 1774, declared in these words; 

"The English colonists are entitled to a free and eidu- 
sive power of legislation in their several Provincial Legis- 
latures, where their right of representation can alone be 
preserved in all cases of taxation and internal polity," &c. 

And strange is it, in the vacillation of human 



opinions, that from defenders we are urged to be- 
come offenders, qnd, with the practice, to adopt • 
the principle of Lord North in this crusade against 
human rights. For there is scarcely an argument 
which can be urged against this claim of local le- 
gislation which the British Ministry did not urge 
against the demands of our fathers to be allowed 
to legislate for themselves. We have been' told 
with due gravity, and, I have no doubt, with due 
sincerity, that the United States are the " sov- 
ereign;" and we have been asked, " and how can 
sovereignty, the ultimate and supreme power of 
a State, be divided ?" Sovereignty indeed! And 
who can find the word in the Constitution, or 
who can deduce any power from its use ? It is a 
process of constructive authority which cannot be 
too severely reprobated, at war, as it is, with the 
fundamental basis of the Confederation. Once 
establish its operation as the foundation of con- 
gressional action, and other and nearer rights than 
those of distant, feeble communities would soon 
be prostrated before it. 

We also listened to dissertations upon " half 
sovereignty," and " divided sovereignty," and 
"squatter sovereignty," and were told that the 
"major includes the minor," and were asked, 
apparently with a good deal of self-complacency, 
" how many individuals would constitute a peo- 
ple; how near they must live to constitute one 
people; and how far apart to make two peoples?" 
as if these questions of human rights were to be 
solved with the precision of a mathematical prob- 
lem, substituting Euclid for Jefferson in their con- 
sideration and determination. He who undertakes 
to apply the square and the compass to human 
rights, natural or political, will find he is dealing 
with a subject beyond his reach, and which has 
eluded many a mightier grasp than his own. 

The Senator from Mississippi ha.s renewed this 
objection to the exercise of the right of self-gov- 
ernment in the Territories, and I am thence led 
briefly to review it. In the peo)>le of the United 
States resides the sovereiicnty of this country; and 
so much of it as they have not granted to the 
General Government, or to the respective State 
governments, they have reserved to themselves. 
The attribute itself gives no power to Congress. 
We are sovereign among the nations of the earth, 
entitled to all the rights which justly belong to 
that condition; entitled to declare war, to make 
peace, to form treaties, and to take our place in 
the family of nations, and there to exercise every 
privilege recognized by the universal code that 
governs .them as freely and as fully as the oldest 
among them. To that code we look to ascertain 
what we may do; but to our own municipal code 
we must look to ascertain how, and by whom, it 
is to be done. All sovereign States may declare 
war, but all have not committed that great trust 
to the same department of their governments. In 
Europe it is generally exercised by the Monarch, 
here by Conjirreps. But if no provision had been 
made in the Constitution for the exercise of this 
authority, or of others growitig out of national 
inter-communication, who could pretend that Con- 
gress was a kind of final depository, a residuary 
legatee, receiving and employing at its pleasure 
all ungranted powers. Such an assumption would 
contradict the very first principle of our political 
system, which is, that the General Government is 
not only a Government of enumerated, but of lim- 



t8 



ited powers, with a right to assume none not ex- 
pressly granted, or not proper and necessary to 
such as are. All else belong to'the people, or to 
the States they have formed. Grotius and Vattel 
may tell us what sovereign States may rightfully 
do. Our Constitution must tell us who shall do 
it. The power of acquisition under the constitu- 
tional treaty -making authority is not denied, but 
the power of goverinnent after such acquisition is 
a very different question. That depends on our 
great charter. And the attribute of sovereignty 
has no more to do in its solution than it has in 
the solution of the question of a bank, of a tariff, 
or of any other subject which has divided -us. 

The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Brown] 
has lent the sanction of his authority to the appli- 
cation of this standard to the great question of the 
origin of Governments, and desires that I should 
define the number a community must attain be- 
fore it can assume that position. Sir, I do not 
belong to that school — I say it with all deference 
to the honorable member — which seeks in the 
science of arithmetic the principles of the science 
of political institutions. The quadrature of the 
circle may be discovered, but human rights will 
never be quadrated by it. The solution of a new 
jiroblem in geometry may call for a new burst of 
enthusiasm, as it did of old, when the discoverer 
exclaimed Eureka ! I have found it. But no Eureka 
will greet him who seeks the riglits of man in that 
path. "Those rights," as Lord Chatham said, 
" are written in the great volume of nature," and 
v/e can read that work even if we do not know 
the difference between a square and a triangle. 
For my own part, as a practical question, divested 
of arithmetical metaphysics, I do not know why 
the smallest number of persons, in the absence of 
all preexisting authority, are not entitled to estab- 
lish rules for the regulation of their mutual affairs, 
or, in other words, a government. A human waif, 
cast by tl.e storms of life upon an unoccupied 
strand, may take measures for his protection and 
preservation, and, as soon as he finds a comrade, 
may, in concert with him, lay down the rules of 
their intercourse, I believe we are told, in the 
veracious liistory of Robinson Crusoe, that this 
is just what that prince of adventurers did, as soon 
as he was blessed with the company of his man 
Friday. 

Tlie world has never seen a truer basis of gov- 
ernment than that established by our Pilgrim fath 
er? the day before iliey debarked upon a wide and 
unknown continent, when they associated togetlier 
and signed their practical declaration of independ- 
ence, solemnly asserting their riglit, "in thepres- 
ence of God and of one another," "to combine 
themselves together in a civil body politic." This 
little band of self-exiled Christiana, numbered in 
the whole, men, women, and children, one hun- 
dred and one persons. Whether they composed 
half a people, or a whole people, or two peoples, they 
did not eio|) to inquire, but went right onwards to 
their work. If the question was not settled by 
them, it was settled by their descendants, now 
constituting: u portion of one of the mightiest peo- 

Cle on the face of the earth. But the objections I 
ave referred to, and others of a similar character, 
werespre.id before us, if not with logical conviction, 
at least with rlietoricul |>rofusion,and with an em- 
phasis which seemed to say, tliese are arguments 
that no man can answer. Among theae contro- 



versial weapons, one wielded with the most earn- 
estness, if not with the most success, was this 
"squatter sovereignty." The full extent of re- 
proach intended to be conveyed by it I never was 
able to comprehend; but so far as I under.'stood it, 
it denies to a people the right of self-government 
if they do not own land, thus going pretty well 
back into feudal times, and practically making 
acres more valuable than men. Well, sir, I be- 
lieve there are objects in life dearer than soil or 
trees, and that the right of government and the 
capacity to conduct it, do not depend upon the ac- 
cident of a deed for a given tract of land. I may 
be pardoned for this heterodoxy, if it be one, be- 
cause I began life merely as a self owner, not as 
a land-owner; and 1 think, before I attained the lat- 
ter character, I had. some rights worth asserting, 
even if full knowledge did not come till brought by 
title deeds. 

But, sir, whether the Government of the Uni- 
ted States is sovereign or subordinate, supreme or 
inferior, confederated or consolidated — and consol- 
idated it will become, if some of these doctrines 
prevail — are questions not worth a moment's con- 
sideration in any inquiry into its legitimate power. 
Neither these nor any other attributes can confer 
upon it the least jurisdiction. To find what that 
is, we must go to the Constitution — to the law 
AND THE TESTIMONY. And all these useless, and 
some of them unintelligible abstractions, were 
urged as reasons why the internal affairs of Amer- 
ican citizens, called freemen, should be controlled 
by a distant Legislature, not one member of which 
entitled to vote is elected by, or is responsible to, 
them. His Majesty in Parliament, said the 
Government of George HI., has the right, by 

STATUTE, TO BIND THE CoLONIES IN ALL CASES 

whatsoever. It took Lord North and his mas- 
ter, George III., seven years to learn the false- 
hood of this assumption, and the lesson cost them 
an empire. While history is the record of human 
actions, it is the reiteration of human motives and 
pretensions. And now before all the men of the 
generation which successfully resisted this edict 
of tyranny have passed away, we are called upon 
practically to declare that o0r Majesty, this 
Government in Congress, has the right by 

statute to BIND THE TERRITORIES IN ALL CASES 

whatsoever, or, according to the new ver- 
sion, TO sell the people into slavery. This is 
good doctrine over the water at Berlin , and Vienna, 
and at Petersburgh, but 1 liope not upon the Wa- 
bash, though we are told that God has spared a 
precious life upon its fertile banks in order to 
announce and promulgate it. The ways of Prov- 
idence are often dark to us blind mortals, but seldom 
darker than in this case, whether we consider the 
messenger or the message, the prophet or the pro- 
phecy. He, without whose knowledge no sjiarrow 
falls to the ground, sometimes selects strange 
instrumentSf according to our comprehension, to 
accomplish his wise designs. It was so in the days 
of Balaam; and if a similar wonder has just oc- 
curred in our days, and in our midst, nothing is 
left for us but to bow and believe. 

But whatever may l)e the nature of this mis- 
sion, the doctrine itself would sound better within 
sight of the tomb of Achilles than within sight of 
tiie tomb of Washington. But even under the 
shadow of Islamism, and within the hearing of 
the Muezzin, who calls the faithful to prayer, it 



19 



would not be considered quite ortliodox in this j, 
day of Turkish reform. And why should not the 
people of the Territories legislate for themselves ? 
The Senator from New York intimates that they 
do not know enough, and cannot safely be trusted ; 
with this incident of self-government — the power , 
to regulate the condition of master and servant — 
though he is willing to trust them with all the I 
powers of life and death, which depend upon the 
political action of a country — with complete au- ! 
thority over whites, but a limited one over blacks. 
This plea of the incompetency of the people to \ 
manage their own concerns is the old plea of ty- i 
ranny all the world over, in the contest between 
power and freedom; and it never was better re- 
buked than by the author of the Declaration of 
Independence, when he said " if the people are 
not fit to govern themselves, have they found an- 
gels in the shape of men to govern them r" Well, 
sir, the Senator from New York has made the dis- 
covery, which escaped the penetration of this 
Patriarch of the Democratic Faith, and has ibund 
angels in the shape of Congressmen to govern the 
Territories. I do not believe in this new phase of 
despoti.sm — making slaves of white communities. 

Thejn, sir, with these views, heretofore made 
known, and yet maintained, I am called upon by 
my vote to saj"-, w'liether I consider the law estab- 
lishing the Missouri compromise, and by which 
Congress legislated over the subject of slavery, ' 
constitutional. I do not; and so believing, I shall 
ever avow the belief. My opinions were known 
to the people of Michigan before they last sent me 
here, and my adhesion to those opinions is due to 
my conviction and my consistency, and I am sure 
these motives will be my justification with a gener- 
ous constituency. 

I have said that I regretted the introduction of 
this topic, because we were closing up this foun- 
tain of bitter waters, and I hoped its issues would 
not again be opened; yet I have no doubt, if I were 
a southern man, I should feel just as southern men 
feel. I should desire to see struck from the statute- 
book what they, as well as 1, consider an invidious 
unconstitutional interference. It makes a distinc- 
tion betv/een North and South which cannot but 
be obnoxious to a high-spirited community, as- 
sumed, as they believe, without constitutional au- 
thority. And certainly to remove this bar sinister 
from. the national e.scutcheon may well furnish a 
more powerful motive of action to a great com- 
munity jealous of its honor, than any hope or ex- 
pectation that its accomplishment will lead to the 
introduction of slavery into these Territories. I 
should have preferred to do so by the recognition 
of a principle rather than by the resort to an ex- 
pedient, and I fully concur in what the Senator 
from Mississippi [Mr. Brown] said on this sub- 
ject. One compromise may berepealed by another, 
and thus from time to time this exciting topic may 
rise up to alarm and disturb, it may be, to separate 
the country. Once establish this true doctrine of 
non-intervention which is laid down in these bills 
upon the ground of a want of constitutional power, 
and you banish the subject forever from the na- 
tional councils, and send it to be adjusted by local 
communities, to which it belongs, and where no 
danger can attend the decision , whatever that may 
be. 

But as a majority does not seem prepared to 
make this declaration of a want of pov/er, for my 



own part I accept the substitute provided in the 
bill, and shall vote for the entire interdiction of 
ail Federal action over this general question under 
any circumstances that may occur, and, of course, 
for declaring void the Missouri compromise. 

This plan of congressional non-intervention is 
the only plan of safety for us, sir, in relation to 
this agitating subject, and it is one so clear, cer- 
tain, and constitutional, that the wonder is, not 
that we are now adopting it, but that we did not 
adopt it when the controversy first began. Entire 
prohibition to the action of the General Govern- 
ment, except so far as relates to its constitutional 
obligations concerning fugitives from service, is 
the only security offered to us. Fidelity to this 
principle will become a covenant, which, like 
the ark of the covenant of old, will conduct us 
through the troubled waters to a land of safety. 
The questions touching the subject of slavery 
are local, and should be left to the proper local 
forum, whether in a State or Territi>ry. to the 
consideration and decision of the people, in a legal 
mode, in their political communities. And cer- 
tainly I cannot but feel much gratification that we 
have reached this point, after so many trials 
and dangers, and that the doctrine of non-inter- 
vention is at length practically recognized by a 
large portion of the people of the United States, 
and forms the basis of the bill now under discus- 
sion; and especiall}^ am 1 gratified at the recogni- 
tion of the rights of our fellow-citizens while in a 
territorial condition, to adjust this matter for them- 
selves during the existence of these temporary 
governments. And the more so, because it was 
this very principle, the inevitable consequence of 
our institutions, which exposed me to much mis- 
i representation and obloquy but a short time since, 
and which led a Georgia paper, the Telegraph, 
; to class me among the mis:hty throng of plunder- 
ers, expressing its want of confidence in " a man 
who would steal the land and pay off the South 
in the abstraction of non-intervention." Well, 
sir, the abstract has changed to the concrete. The 
rejected stone has become the chief stone of the 
corner. Instead of originating in vile motives of 
plunder and ministering to the gratification of 
such a miserable passion, this doctrine of non-in- 
tervention and of self-government is taking its 
place, has taken it, indeed,. among the great prin- 
ciples of our institutions, equally just in its origin 
and salutary in its operation. Instead of being 
an attack upon the rights of the South, " it is the 
true constitutional shield, interposed for the pro- 
. tection of an article of political faith equally dear 
to every portion of our citizens — thepower to reg- 
ulate their own domestic affairs in their own way. 
It is at last discovered and acknowledged that 
Americans^going to a Territory do not loecome 
' slaves themselves, nor can any abstraction, like 
that of "sovereignty," nov/ be successfully raised 
up as a barrier between them and the enjoyment 
of the most sacred rights which Gcd has given 
to man 

Those, sir, who were here at the time cannot 
forget — I cannot, at any rate — that when in the 
discussion of the questions arising out of the 
I Mexican acquisitions, I defended the propositions 
! at which I had arrived in the investigation of the 
I subject, I was met by a' storm of opposition to 
i one of them — reprobation, I may call it — not often 
; witnessed, and which found its echo through the 



20 



whole South. I repeat these propositions in the 
words I then used: 

" First. That the Wiimot proviso was unconsti- 
tutional," for the reason given, that Congress had 
no jurisdiction over the subject of slavery. 

" Second. That slavery having been abolished 
by the Mexican Government, did not exist in the 
Territory," &c. 

" Third. That slavery would not go there," as 
well on account of natural obstacles, as the feelings 
of the people. 

" Fourth. That organized communities, exer- 
cising the powers of government, whether in 
States or Territories, had alone the right of de- 
termining this question for themselves." 

And the principle contained in this fourth propo- 
sition was advanced in my letter to Mr. Nichol- 
son, wherein I said: " It (the interference of Con- 
gress) should be limited to the creation of proper 
governments for new countries acquired or settled, 
and to the necessary provision for their eventual 
admission into the Union, leaving, in the mean 
time, to the people inhabiting them, to regulate 
their own concerns in their own way." 

The Senator from New York, [Mr. Seward] 
in his opposition to this bill, said, as has been often 
and illogically said before, that Congress has fre- 
quently made provisions, in the laws for the or- 
ganization of the Territories, inconsistent with 
this claim of self-government. And if thej' have, 
what then .' Is an abuse or an oppression to be 
forever continued because once assumed .' But the 
Senator is in error, and the cause of it is obvious. 
In the formation of political systems for the Terri- 
tories there must be some latitude of discussion, as 
there will be difference of opinion, concerning the 
powers to be recognized or restrained. The pre- 
cise boundary between external and internal af- 
fairs can not always be exactly fixed ; and , of course, 
Borne of the details of tlie organic laws may go 
further than many would approve. But, with the 
excejition of this legislation by Consfress over the 
subject of slavery, 1 know of no control over any 
of the family relations of which the Territories 
have been deprived. There is one barrier so plain 
that it cannot be overpassed through ignorance, 
and oujj-ht not to be through design. And that is, 
the internal domestic affairs of these embryo 
States. We know we cannot touch their domes- 
tic hearths nor their domestic altars, their family 
and social relations, their wives nor their children, 
their man serrants nor their maid servants, their 
houses, their farms, nor their property, without a 
gross violation of the inalienable rights of man, 
consecrated by the blood of our fathers, and hal- 
lowed l)y the affections of their sons. There is 
no human intellect, however mighty it may be, 
wiiich can render this plea of tyranny acceptable 
to the American people. 

Tlie Senator frfun Mississippi presented similar 
considerations, and enlarged somewhat upon 
them; and, in addition, he contended, that Con- 
gress could nnt grant a power they did not pos- 
sess, that if they had no rio;ht to legislate over the 
domestic alfairs oft he Territories, they had no right 
to enable the people to do so. Now, sir, this ob- 
jection cannot stand the test of e.xaniination. In 
the first place, I deny that the people of the Ter- 
ritories derive their power of self-government from 
the National Legislature. I concede, as I have 
8uid, from the peculiar, and, in some measure, un- i 



defined, relations between those communities and 
the General Government, as a matter of necessity, 
Congress must interfere to establish and organize 
governments, but that this being done, they have 
then an inalienable right to manage their internal 
affairs for themselves, and that the organic law in 
tliis respect is not a grant but a recognition. I 
repeat, that in executing our share of tliis arrange- 
ment we have not confined ourselves strictly 
within just limits; but till lately the que.stion has 
not been much explored, and even now an exact, 
undisputed boundary is perhaps unattainable. 
The Senator from Mississippi asks me if I would 
be willing to have the Territories elect their Gov- 
ernor.' I answered that question in this Hall on 
the 9th June, 1850, when I said, in answer to an 
inquiry of Mr. Webster, that " I was willing to 
allow the Territories to elect theirown Governors. " 
And to that admission I still adhere, and, with the 
Senator from California, I would take from the 
Governors the absolute veto given bv these bills. 
But, sir, although I think we go too far, still, 
I do not desire to throw unnecessary obstacles in 
the way of their passage, and will not do so by 
my action, though if others propose amendments 
I shall freely vote upon them. Our supervisory 
power arising out of our connection with these 
States in posse involves considerations which all 
will not view alike. I shall go as far as I can for 
national and constitutional freedom. But again, 
sir, with respect to this objection — that we cannot 
grant a power we do not possess — I have to remark 
that, as a general principle, ;t is contradicted by 
the legislative experience of every day. We con- 
fer a vast variety of powers which we have not 
the siiadow of authority to execute ourselves. And 
going to the Territories, what do we do there.' 
Why, sir, the most important of all their rights — 
the right to establish a constitution for themselves, 
preparatory to their admission into the Union — is 
provided for by Congressional legislation. What 
then becomes of this objection .' Because we en- 
able them to exercise their supreme power of legis- 
lation, does it thence follow that we possess it in 
the first instance, and could form a constitution 
which should bind and control them.' Every 
man instinctively answers that question in the 
negative as soon as he hears it, and that answer 
refutes this proposition, without other arirument. 
A few words more upon another point intro- 
duced by the Senator from Mississippi, and I quit 
this branch of the sul))ect. He refers to my an- 
swer to the inquiry, "Where the people of the Ter- 
ritories get the right to legif-late for themselves.'" — 
that " they get it from Almiglity God " — and seems 
to think that it is false as a principle, and dan- 
gerous in practice. And, if I understood him, 
he considers it in the same category with the 
liigher law found in the pandects of the Senator 
from New York, [Mr. Skwaku,] and announced 
as the icreat political discovery of the age. 

[flere Mr. Brow n disavowed any such views.] 
Sir, I hold that doctrine which allows to every 
man the jiractical right, as hypocrite or visionary, 
to set aside all human laws, liy pretenses of con- 
ei'ientious scruples, in utter abhorrence; and from 
the day it was proclaimed here belbrean indignant 
Senate, down to this daV, I have denounced it 
whenever the occasion calleri for theex[iression of 
my views. But, sir, the difference between that 
proposition and mine is marked with a boundary 



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as broad and clear as ever divided truth from error. 
There are certain great, inalienable rights which the 
bountiful Creator has given to man, as is emphat- 
ically announced in our Declaration of Independ- 
ence. Among these is the right to institute gov- 
ernments — as that Declaration asserts — and there 
this principle stops. When once instituted, it is 
the duty of every man to obey the laws, unless 
the oppression is such as to justify a revolution. 

But the principle, if it can be so called, of the 
Senator from New York permits every man to 
live under a government, or out of a government, * 
at his plea.^ure, obeying just such laws as a fanati- 
cal conscience, or a hypocritical conscience, or no ' 
conscience at all, may prompt him to reject. If 
an honest man cannot conscientiously obey a law, 
and can neither procure its repeal by peaceful 
means, nor by a just revolution, if he remain 
within us jurisdiction, he has but one course, and , 
that is to suffer as a martyr, and not to resist as a 
criminal. I further added, in the passage criticized 
by the Senator from Mississippi: j 

" The same beneficent Being who gave to the Territories ' 
their riglits gave us our rights, and gave to our fathers tlie 
power and the will to maintain ihem. I am not speaking 
of a revolution ; that is a just remedy for violated rights. ' 
But tarn speaking of arightinherent in every eomniuniiy — 
that of having a share in making the laws which are to 
govern them, and which nothing but despotic power can 
deprive thrni. That power in Europe is the sword. Here ' 
political metaphysics come to take its place." I 

But, sir, whatever application these remarks ' 
may have had to the circumstances which then 
engaged our attention, they have none to the sub- 
ject before us. They have no practical bearing 
upon it. These bills organizing governinents for 
Nebraska and Kansas grant full legislative power 
to these Territories over all questions of human 
concern, including slavery, unless restrained by 
the Constitution of the United States. Whether, 
therefore, the people are few or many, sovereign 
or subordinate, deriving their right from God or 
man, or whether we can grant powers we cannot 
exercise, are topics of curious inquiry, it may be, 
«but without the slightest use in our present inves- 
tigation. I therefore abandon them. 

This doctrine of the right of the people to legis- " 
late for themselves was what, more than any ' 
other, provoked denunciation. It was pronounced ' 
by Mr. Calhoun to be " the most monstrous 
doctrine ever advanced by any American states- 
man," &c. 

Another able and eminentsouthern Senator con- 
sidered my opinions so extreme on this point that 
he said I was the only man who entertained them 
•' in this Chamber, or almost beyond it;" and in 
the comprotnise committee of thirteen it met with 
little favor, though zealously urged. My friend 
from Indiana [Mr. Bright] was found on the 
true side of human rights, and so was the emiuent 
citizen, then one of the Senators from New York, 
[Mr. Dickinson,] whom I am happy to have this 
opportunity to do justice to — as true a patriot as 
his country possesses, and who was among the 
foremost, both in zeal and intellectual power, in 
bringing about the great work of conciliation. ! 
There may have been others, though I cannot say 



I there were. But the full time had not come, and 
J the proposition failed. 

The earnest and eloquent remarks of the Sena- 
tor from Iowa, [Mr. Dodge,] to which the Senate 
listened with such interest and attention on Satur- 
day, and which captivated equally my heart and 
rny understanding, did justice to oneof the most es- 
timable men whoever occupied a seat in this body, 
' [Mr. Underwood.] I always found him with the 
; most liberal and enlarged ideas upon all matters 
connected with huinan freedom. But the subject 
to which the Senator from Iowa referred was not 
this right of self-legislation in the Teiritories, but 
! their right to come into the Union with or with- 
out slavery at their pleasure— a right which I 
never understood how any American could dis- 
: pute. 1 am gratified at this occasion of rendering 
justice to the consistent course of the Senator from 
, Illinois [Mr. Douglas] upon thismomentous topic. 
He was found on the right side, and his opinions 
; were expressed with equal frankness and clearness. 
I " I have always held," he said, " that the people 
qhave a right to settle these questions as they 
; choose, not only when they come info the Union 
J, as a State, but that they should be permitted to do 
; so while a Territory." 

: Mr. Webster, with his powerful intellect, which 
i! grasped the mightiest subjects presented to the 
, human comprehension, and from whom few men 
'could differ without some misgivings, could not" 
I reconcile himself to this claim of self-governinent. 
This all v/ell know who recollect the interroga- 
tories he put to me concerning the relation of the 
Territories to the General Government, and the 
political condition of the people. Because a terri- 
torial " is not an established permanent govern- 
ment," he denied to it jurisdiction over " the sub- 
ject of slavery," and "many other powers." 
Why the duration of this temporary political 
condition should deprive the people of this right 
to regulate the relation of master and servant ally 
inore than the right to regulate the other domestic 
relations I do not know, nor did he explain. He I 
did not find the difficulty in this " expansion of 
recognition," for he was no believer in it. What 
' he did not do no one has since done, at least to 
'. my conviction. • 

' The first step we took with his full concurrence, 
when we declared in effect, by our legislation, 
that Congress should have no authority^over the 
subject of slavery in the Territories; and now we 
are faking another, and when taken we shall find 
ourselves at the goal, the prize of Union and tran- 
quillity won beyond the reach of future agitation, 
however mighty may be the progress of our Con- 
federation over the Continent, whose destiny is 
closely interwoven with our own. 

I said in my letter to Mr. Nicholson, and I re- 
peat it here, that "by going back to our true prin- 
ciples we go back to the road of peace and safety. 
Leave to the people, who will be affected by this 
question, to adjust it upon their own responsi- 
bility and in their own manner, and we shall ren- 
der another tribute to the original principles of 
our Government, and furnish another guarantee 
for its permanency and prosperity. 



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